MANAGED CARE October 2001. ©MediMedia USA
EDITORS' MEMO
Trade publishing is isolationist in nature. Here at Managed Care, we intently watch the worlds of health, business, insurance, and public policy in our constant endeavor to bring you news, information, and analysis that you can use in your work life. The "great beyond" is brought to you by the general news media, which are well equipped to do just that.
For example, the election deadlock of 2000 got short notice here — appropriately. Some things, however, are impossible to ignore. Some events change everything.
We offer our prayers for the victims of Sept. 11, our condolences to families of victims, our best wishes to the men and women in the military who will respond.
The terrorist attack has nothing to do with what we do here — and everything to do with it. Like the professional sports teams, traders on Wall Street, schools, and businesses across the country who paused to grieve with the nation, we pause also. Like them, we realize that there are more important things than what's going on in our little corner of society.
We too understand that even the language through which we frame the old divisions seems a bit suspect. Sports writers following franchises in competing cities now know how hollow it sounds to say their stars are "at each other's throats." We hear the emptiness in trying to explain the "tension" between HMO executives and primary care physicians.
It all seems somewhat paltry. After all, if we did not know it on Sept. 10, we certainly know now that there are people in the world who want us Americans dead, and who would kill all of us if given the chance.
So, this month's Editors' Memo — if not this month's issue — takes a break from managed care. We'll return in November with comments about the issues in the industry over which debates will continue to be conducted. Those discussions and differences of opinion often lead to progress or reform — the flowerings of free societies.