Maybe Dr Gerry would prefer that doctors be chained to their workstations, fed bread and water and forced to treat anyone who makes it to the hospital.

Thailand has always had reasonably priced healthcare. Doctors made a practice of giving a break to those who couldn't afford the standard prices and tried to make their living from those that could.

Then the government came up with the Bt30 medical scheme, and the entire system was turned upside down.

First of all, to the best of my knowledge, foreigners pay the same basic prices as Thais do. That is why they come here for care, not because the doctors here are better. The difference is the foreigners pay their bill, and the government may or may not pay the bill for the patient using the Bt30 medical scheme. The government has put doctors here in a very difficult position, and people then criticise them for trying to make a living by also serving foreigners.

I would love to see a report on exactly where the government programme is at. Who has been paid? Who has not been paid? Why are hospitals going bankrupt? Why are doctors leaving the provinces?

I think people should do a little investigation before they start criticising others who have always treated not only their own countrymen fairly, but also all citizens of the world who have gone to them for treatment. Something the doctors-cum-entrepreneurs in the West cannot make a claim to.

John Arnone

Yasothon

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Don't subsidise medical care for foreigners with local taxes

Re: "Promoting healthcare for foreigners takes sorely needed doctors from locals", Letters, May 22.

Dr Gerry is absolutely correct in that private medical business for foreigners should not be subsidised with taxes, and this practice "pulls away" doctors from Thais who pay these taxes. Dr Gerry states the tax subsidy for medical visits by foreigners is "dead wrong". I agree.

Dr Gerry thus prompts the question: why are Thai doctors treating Thai patients not getting paid at market rates?

What factors are controlling, capping or driving down wages for Thai doctors? Who is using their labour below what it is worth? How did Thai doctors get press-ganged into servitude? Who is responsible for creating such a system whereby Thai doctors are treated as property of the state?

Price controls and capped wages create distortions that are only revealed to the world when the magic of the free market is allowed to expose these contradictions.

However, as Dr Gerry so correctly observes, using tax subsidies is wrong, perhaps not quite for the reason he enunciated, but because this adds yet another layer of distortion to a true free market in medicine. Political interference in the free market at both ends of the spectrum guarantees the inevitable law of unintended consequences to emerge.

W Knight Orange County, California Side trip to Samet spoiled a pleasant trip to Rayong

Re: "Tourists charged more but get little for their money", Letters, May 21.

Having read Sandy Shores' comments on Koh Samet, I feel compelled to add my twopence.

I took my staff on a trip to Rayong recently, and we had a wonderful holiday. However, when we visited Koh Samet for a day trip, my gentle staff from Chiang Mai were horrified at the unacceptable language and verbal abuse they encountered by unsmiling Koh Sametians. Service was poor, bad language was used, insults were flung around, and we also overheard innocently passing farangs being insulted by shopkeepers and harassed by officials, using most improper language. Comments such as, "Go home if you want to bargain" and, "We don't need your money, we have many tourists here every day," and general insults as to the shapes, race and looks of farangs walking past.

There was not one smiling face that we saw. In short, this is an island apparently inhabited by people with no manners. I would urge whoever is in charge to instil some etiquette lessons as well as basic business principles to these greedy islanders who live off tourists whom they feel only contempt for. Needless to say, we will not be visiting again.

On our boat ride back, I heard one of our graphic designers shake her head and say, "Mai khao jai, this is not Thailand. These are not Thais." Sadly, they are.

Pim Kemasingki

Chiang Mai

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TRT accusing Democrats of funding parties beggars belief

The leadership of the Thai Rak Thai Party must think we all are stupid beyond reproach when they claim the Democrat Party paid smaller parties to put up candidates for the April 2 election. The Democrats would have gained more if more single-candidate constituencies had existed.

To claim that the Democrats paid small parties so they could claim afterwards that these smaller parties were instead paid by Thai Rak Thai can only come from either a weird brain or somebody who did just that: paid smaller parties to put up candidates. And in fact, this whole story reflects the working style of Thai Rak Thai. It reflects the high-handedness of Thai Rak Thai, and it's hardly a ruse by their opponents.

Sam Munich

Bangkok

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Ruling-party appointees should not conduct vote probe

Re: "Two resign from EC's election-scam panel", News, May 22.

The Election Commission wants to reject its own committee's findings concluding that Thai Rak Thai executives were implicated in hiring small parties to run in the April 2 elections. Funny, the EC trusted ex-judge Nam Yimyaem's committee enough to ban the bribe-receivers based on its work but is unwilling to accept its findings about the bribe-givers. Might it be because the party implicated is Thai Rak Thai, which hand-picked the EC members? As Shakespeare's Hamlet would have said, "Something is rotten in Thailand."

With their work being totally discredited in court, the EC has little, if any, credibility left. The Nam panel's findings may be correct and Thai Rak Thai fully guilty. But Thai Rak Thai's claims that despite being carefully selected by EC chair Vasana Puemlarp, panel members had close ties to Democrats might be true also. Either way, justice must be seen to be done in this case that is so vital to the ethics of our political parties - and the courts are a far, far more trusted and impartial body than is the EC.

Send the party-hiring case to the courts for their verdict.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Charge Thais more abroad, and then they'll take notice

Several letters have discussed the issue of two-tier pricing in Thailand. I think this disgusting practice is very deeply rooted in Thai culture and will not go away because of a few letters. I'd like to encourage those who are unhappy about two-tier pricing to push for laws in their own countries that would dictate charging Thais more. This will be the only effective way to bring this to the attention of the Thai public.

Julian Wang

Taiwan

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Blatant two-tier pricing at temples violates karmic rules

There's been quite a few letters recently regarding two-tier pricing in Thailand, an unfair practice that permeates all types of businesses and government organisations. For instance, working visas for Americans, Canadians and Japanese living in Thailand are more expensive than visas for other countries.

I lived in Ayutthaya for a year, and every restaurant along the river there had two menus. Even though I speak Thai and complained each time, my comments were merely dismissed. All of the temple ruins in Ayutthaya, which are frequented by Thais and foreigners alike, have their two-tier pricing displayed right at the ticket counters, as if it's standard and accepted practice. Are they aware they're breaking the law in the face of the Buddha himself? Does this affect their karma?

The most telling example of two-tier pricing I've witnessed so far, however, is at the royal Bang Pa-in Palace grounds. Blatantly displayed at their ticket counter are one price for Thais and a foreign price four times that of the Thai price.

The bottom line: I'm a legal resident of Thailand - I live here, work here, pay taxes here - the same as Thais. Why should I be charged more for any service or good just because my skin is white?

KJ Rosser

Bangkok

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'Explanation' tacked onto film insults one's intelligence

Re: "'Da Vinci Code' gets its ending restored", News, May 18.

I am not sure whether the police-affiliated censorship board was poking fun at the fundamentalist Christian groups or not. Saying that an explanation about "The Da Vinci Code" being fiction must be shown before and after the film can be interpreted as a joke or an insult to Thai film-goers. Do they really think Thai film-goers are so naive that without such an explanation they would think the film was a documentary? Surely, Thais are more intelligent and aware than that.

The other interpretation is that the censors do not think Thai film-goers are that naive. In that case, there would be no need for the statement, and they did it as a joke over the fundamentalist Christian groups who were opposing some sections of the film. Those groups, obviously, do think Thai film-goers are naive. I would think this second interpretation the correct one.

Gareth Clayton

Bangkok

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