Behind the spectacle of town hall brawls, death panel paranoia and pundit jabber, there is a real effort by powerful people to change the way Americans receive and pay for their health care. Nearly everyone agrees that the industry needs reform, but questions over what role the government will play and how any of it will be paid for has the nation bitterly divided.
Santa Cruz Weekly spoke with two health industry experts and asked them to cut through the noise and give real answers on what health care reform means, and how Central Coast residents can stay abreast of the facts and avoid the fiction.
Stephen Shortell is dean of UC-Berkeley’s School of Public Health and has been in Washington several times recently advising White House health care strategists on what’s needed in reform. He says the country’s health care system is on a “disaster course” and that the truly “scary” part of the debate lies in the possibility that nothing will change.
“The three big questions are, first: how do we expand health care to every American? Second is the issue of how we pay for it. And third is a question that’s been largely ignored, and that is: how do we pay for it over time and make it sustainable?” he says. “It’s important to remember that health insurance reform is not health care reform. The other half of that is health care deliverance reform, and we need that as well.”
Shortell says that increased competition among insurance carriers, transparency of governing health care bodies and standardization of medical records and procedures is essential for any efforts to be labeled as reform. He points to Kaiser Permanente and the non-profit Mayo Clinic as models of how health care should be run. Shortell does not, however, unequivocally support President Obama’s “public option,” which would make government health insurance available to anyone who sought it.
“The devil is in the details, and we don’t know enough about the details,” says Shortell of the public insurance option. “The key idea is to create competition on the exchanges of cost and quality. And to have all insurance plans be able to list their quality of care matrix and the price they’re going to charge us for different benefit packages. And once that is done, and you have standardization of insurance claims, and you have portability of insurance, and you remove the pre-existing conditions, that’s going to go a long ways in providing coverage for all people.”
Scott Seamons is a regional vice president with the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California, which represents dozens of hospitals and clinics in 50 California counties. He has a hands-off-my-health-care approach to expanding government involvement in the health industry, which puts him in line with many conservatives rallying against public insurance. Some of those same folks, however, might balk at Seamons’ insistence that undocumented workers be insured.
“I understand the passion that people feel that (illegal aliens) don’t pay into it, so they don’t deserve it. But we’re already paying for their care. When they show up to the ER, we have to treat them or we get hauled off to jail. Who’s paying for that care? Hospitals,” says Seamons. “We’re not in favor of one public option. We favor choice. But having one public option doesn’t get us anywhere. We want incentivised care, but where the government is writing the checks, not running the program. They goofed up everything they’ve touched big time, so we can’t have them playing in this sandbox.”
Both Shortell and Seamons agree that reform can’t wait, and that partisan bickering needs to be reined in for the sake of the American people. Both dismissed myths about government “death panels,” euthanasia and added federal funding for abortions. And both also said that a solid financial support structure needs to be hashed out before anything is passed.
“Any health care reform needs a balanced approach with four cornerstones,” says Seamons. “One: shared responsibility; two: universal access and affordable coverage; three: a focus on quality and improvement of cost of care; and four: aligned financial incentives. Without those, it’s not reform.”
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Scott Walker Thu, Aug 27, 2009 - 6:04 am
Oh really? There is a glaring assumption in this first question, “The three big questions are, first: how do we expand health care to every American…?” If we can’t spot the assumption and see it as an assumption, we will forever remain in a pickle. Remember Thomas Pynchon’s helpful saying, “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”
jacksmith Thu, Aug 27, 2009 - 7:33 pm
NO CO-OP’S! A Little History Lesson
Young People. America needs your help.
More than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% of republicans). Basically everyone.
According to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. And 79% of seniors support creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!! Senator Max Baucus, You better come out of committee with a strong government-run public option available on day one.
The History:
Our last great economic catastrophe was called the Great Depression. Then as now it was caused by a reckless, and corrupt Republican administration and republican congress. FDR a Democrat, was then elected to save the nation and the American people from the unbridled GREED and profiteering, of the unregulated predatory self-interest of the banking industry and Wallstreet. Just like now.
FDR proposed a Government-run health insurance plan to go with Social Security. To assure all Americans high quality, easily accessible, affordable, National Healthcare security. Regardless of where you lived, worked, or your ability to pay. But the AMA riled against it. Using all manor of scare tactics, like Calling it SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!! :-0
So FDR established thousands of co-op’s around the country in rural America. And all of them failed. The biggest of these co-op organizations would become the grandfather of the predatory monster that all of you know today as the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry. And the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry.
This former co-op would grow so powerful that it would corrupt every aspect of healthcare delivery in America. Even corrupting the Government of the United States.
This former co-op’s name is BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD.
Do you see now why even the suggestion of co-op’s is ridiculous. It makes me so ANGRY! Co-op’s are not a substitute for a government-run public option.
They are trying to pull the wool over our eye’s again. Senators, if you don’t have the votes now, GET THEM! Or turn them over to us. WE WILL! DEAL WITH THEM. Why do you think we gave your party Control of the House, Control of the Senate, Control of the Whitehouse. The only option on the table that has any chance of fixing our healthcare crisis is a STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION.
An insurance mandate and subsidies without a strong government-run public option choice available on day one, would be worse than the healthcare catastrophe we have now. The insurance, and healthcare industry have been very successful at exploiting the good hearts of the American people. But Congress and the president must not let that happen this time. House Progressives and members of the Tri-caucus must continue to hold firm on their demand for a strong Government-run public option.
A healthcare reform bill with mandates and subsidies but without a STRONG government-run public option choice on day one, would be much worse than NO healthcare reform at all. So you must be strong and KILL IT! if you have too. And let the chips fall where they may. You can do insurance reform without mandates, subsidies, or taxpayer expense.
Actually, no tax payer funds should be use to subsidize any private for profit insurance plans. So, NO TAX PAYER SUBSIDIES TO PRIVATE FOR PROFIT PLANS. Tax payer funds should only be used to subsidize the public plans. Healthcare reform should be 100% for the American people. Not another taxpayer bailout of the private for profit insurance industry, disguised as healthcare reform for the people.
God Bless You
Jacksmith — Working Class
Twitter search #welovetheNHS #NHS Check it out
(http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
American HEROES!!
Click replay to play http://bit.ly/j31oU
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWw23XwO5o) CYBER WARRIORS!! - TAKE THIS VIRAL
HSR0601 Fri, Aug 28, 2009 - 12:23 am
If the findings of CBO over inaction had been released earlier, Ted Kennedy could’ve seen his lifetime wish come true.
Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, can not be compared to the balance between estimate and outcome in a worst case of scenario, and this balance could be adjusted each year. ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion—60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)). Time does not fix endless greed and energy depletion.
When the public health is also one of commodity like a house, we come to a tragic and unthinkable conclusion : As to for-profit business, the more and longer ills patients get, the more profits they make, and it will debilitate the overall economy involving education for the future, not to mention continued bankruptcy of middle class.
Of young adults ages 19 to 29, 13.2 million, or 29 percent, lacked coverage in 2007, and that implies the total of this promising reform will be cheaper than expected, I guess.
In case of an unexpected injury or ill, they might give up their learning or aspiration, in this regard, this reform means liberty, job opportunity, competitiveness for them and future.
When some part of our body is ailing seriously, we are going to lose competitiveness, equally, when some part of a nation is ailing servery, it is going to loose competitiveness, too.