The Long Way To Healthcare Reform

Tune into any news or talk show, pick up any newspaper and the one subject that is getting a lot of attention is heath care reform.

Its getting scary out there as many people verbally (so far) wage their opinions on the Obama Administration’s proposed health care reform. Most of the controversy is being sparked by conservatives and GOP Republicans. Perhaps the two most important aspects argued over are both the cost of health care reform and the ‘Advanced Care Planning’ provision, or as former governor and failed Republican vice-presidential candidate Sara Palin calls it, the ’death panels’ which she claims would decide which Medicare beneficiaries would live and which would die. Private insurance companies as well conservative radio talk show hosts are stirring the controversy with facts, half facts and outright distortions and lies. It is similar to the tactics conservatives and Republicans used to destroy heath care initiatives attempted by the Clinton administration. President Barrack Obama is hopeful that Health Care Reform Bill 3200 will pass the House between October and November. According to 2005 census data, over 46.6 million Americans are without health care insurance. Some reasons why so many Americans are without health care coverage include those who are unemployed as well the number of businesses who do not offer company-sponsored health plans. This is a disturbing trend as more businesses cut back on employee benefits. Some companies like large retailers count on Medicare and Medicaid to foot the bill for its workers. Where heath care is offered, its usually prohibitively expensive and limited in what the policy will cover. Meanwhile, private insurance companies have caps on what they will pay, as well refusing health care coverage for pre-existing conditions decided by the insurers themselves. Insurers are also able to drop consumers with little or no advance warning. Many consumers are unaware they are underinsured until they receive bills from hospitals and doctors saying procedures are not covered by their insurance. Hospitals and physicians themselves are feeling the financial pinch of discovering their patients do not have adequate coverage with procedural costs which far exceed the income of most lower and middle class individuals. It is mandated by law that hospitals cannot refuse emergency services to indigent individuals. There have been some reports of patients being dumped on the sidewalk when it was apparent a person has no insurance or the coverage simply runs out as in one ABC News expose. Currently coverage of Americans has declined to a little over 67% in 2005. Many minimum wage workers have been squeezed out of private coverage, swelling into the ranks of Medicaid recipients. More Americans having reached retirement age or having been laid-off as companies ship jobs overseas, as well the long-term unemployed have taken a hit on both Medicare and Medicaid funds that have also been ’looted’ over the decades by elected officials for pork belly projects that has left both funds dangerously low. Both agencies are looking at ways to limit losses, however Medicare is saying that they will be bankrupt by 2017 and Medicaid is expected to be ’tapped-out’ by 2019. Some say insolvency may come sooner as the economic downturn continues. Private insurers are working hard to eliminate costly coverage by dumping clients who are running up medical tabs. However, they are in hard opposition to a competing public healthcare plan even if means denying coverage to individuals they refuse to cover. Reasoning is if a public insurance plan becomes more popular, they may risk losing business to a government-run plan. They simply don’t want to compete with what they feel would be an un-level playing field. So every effort is being made by insurers, elected officials in their pockets and the GOP itself to defeat healthcare reform policies put forth by the Obama Administration. Many conservative talk show hosts have been ridiculing Obama-led insurance reform, encouraging listeners to disrupt health care reform town hall meetings, rather than listening and reading about the actual legislation being offered. Therefore many public talks are being disrupted by allegedly GOP-sponsored ’bused-in’ protestors either hired or cajoled by Republican concerns. One insidious attack is being publicly-led by former Alaska governor Sara Palin, who has called Section 1233 (pages 425 to 430) a ‘death panel’ provision in her ’Twitter’ offerings. She is saying that under Obama’s plan, assisted suicide for those on Medicare and Medicaid will be highly encouraged or mandatory in continuing to receive services through both insurances, however, it is simply not true. What the plan calls for is ‘Advanced Care Planning’ consultation offered by the individuals’ physician on a paid basis - much like explaining the necessity of a ‘living will‘ and its importance in allowing the consumer to make ’end of life’ decisions at a time of non-crisis. They are not offering ’assisted suicide’ options as Palin suggests. One of the biggest problems in fighting distortions of the facts are individuals who protest the provision based on alleged Republican chicanery as well misinformation being offered by conservative talk show hosts. Too many listeners are simply too lazy to read and understand the actual provisions and count on conservative talk show hosts to do their thinking for them according to some supporters of the healthcare reform bill. As to deciding what provisions become law, Cleveland Clinic Chief and President Dr. Delos Cosgrove feels the politicians are not giving much thought beyond insurance considerations of Health Care Reform itself. Dr. Cosgrove feels there is too much attention focused on insurance reform aspects and too little on reducing costs and making Americans more healthy in general. According to Dr. Cosgrove, “we need to develop a more efficient healthcare delivery system by increasing the integration of hospitals and having more collaboration between physicians and hospitals.” He further goes on to say that its difficult to control costs if physicians and hospitals don’t work together. Cleveland Clinic has also been busy in working on developing an ’electronic’ medical records system. The hospital organization has even gone on record by saying it will not hire smokers. It is also fighting against employee obesity by offering membership to Weight Watchers and Curves. Dr. Cosgrove feels the biggest reason for those against healthcare reform is the fear of change.