Uninsured, cost critical in health care reform on The Murfreesboro Post

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Uninsured, cost critical in health care reform

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer

Posted: Sunday, November 8, 2009 6:51 am

Over the past several months, the U.S. Congress has tried to tackle one of its most pressing challenges in recent history – health insurance reform.

Congress has focused its reforms on making health insurance more accessible to an estimated 47 million uninsured Americans and less costly to the public.

Local health care providers agree that accessibility and cost are the core problems facing health care, but differ on solutions.

“Fundamentally, healthcare reform is about two things: the uninsured and the cost of care,” said Joe Bowman, chief financial officer for StoneCrest Medical Center in Smyrna. “If we don’t address both of these issues, our country will suffer.”

To address these issues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced recently the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, which includes a public option, expands Medicare, opens the group insurance market to individuals and small businesses, and contains a variety of health insurance industry reforms.

It is a companion bill to the Senate’s bill that passed the Finance Committee earlier this month. The Senate bill offers the same general points as the House bill, but offers states the ability to opt out of the public plan.

In response, House Republicans released a counterpoint to the Democrat’s bill, which focuses on lowering the cost of health care through competition across state lines, encouraging health savings accounts and malpractice tort reform. But it doesn’t restrict insurers from denying clients for pre-existing conditions.

Dr. Rob Greenberg, a sports medicine specialist with the Tennessee Orthopedic Alliance and member of Rep. Bart Gordon’s task force on health insurance reform, isn’t convinced a public option or any reform of the insurance industry from either side of the aisle will help drive down cost or improve accessibility.

With either option the money will just go to the middlemen and medical costs will continue to rise just because there are more people in the system, he said.

Greenberg said the only way to make sustainable changes to health insurance is to make the industry run more like other types of insurance.

“People are never concerned with the cost. There’s no cost responsibility,” he said, noting health care consumers are too far removed from the true cost of care to be savvy about spending.

He equated the health care industry to the grocery store.

“It’s like going into the grocery store and saying, ‘I’ve spent my $600 on food for the year, everything else is free’,” he said.

The average person spends grocery money more carefully because it is directly connected to her bank account. But in the case of health care, the money is coming out of someone else’s pocket, whether it is the insurance company when paying for the care or the employer when paying for the insurance.

“Health care insurance is flawed because it doesn’t work as other insurance does,” Greenberg said, because of the disconnect between consumer and cost.

Instead of more closely connecting consumer with cost, Bowman would like to see more people covered by health insurance and guards put in place to control cost.

“For the most part, those individuals turn to hospital emergency departments and doctors’ offices for their care. The problem is that their care is going unpaid,” Bowman said, adding that unpaid debt drives up costs for both hospitals and doctors.

Timm Glover, MTMC vice president of mission and leadership, on the other hand, believes the cost of health care should be shared throughout society.

“We must change some of the current rules that make insurance difficult to obtain or afford. This also includes sharing – as individuals and as employers – in the responsibility for obtaining and paying for coverage,” Glover said. “We need to make sure that health insurance is decent – that it is available and affordable, and that policies are equitable across demographic groups and geographies.”

Regardless of the means, health care providers, consumers and the government all agree on one point in the health insurance reform debate: Something must get done, sooner rather than later.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

Tagged under Health Care Reform

Member Opinions:

By: BoltAction on 11/8/09
How about stop giving free service to the illegals. Force them to pay something for the services they receive.

I do the right thing and get insurance for my family. We do not go to the doctor unless absolutely necessary.

Now I am expected to pay for someone else? I have needs and wants and my family comes first. I should not be forced to help someone else I do not know that chooses not to prioritize their needs.

We have too many people coming into this county and living off the system. It's time to cut the entitlements and force these people to earn their keep.

By: momx5 on 11/8/09
Many people with health insurance still don't pay their doctors' bills for the portion that is theirs to pay. Do not tell me that having health insurance solves these problems. I have patients that i've billed month after month and finally have to take them to court...there will always be people who will go shopping before they pay any bill. Statistically Docs are paid 17th in line when people are looking at their bills for the month. Your car can get towed away, but nobody is going to come "undo" your surgery.
If you put the same money you would pay to an insurance company in a specified bank account you would have $10,000+ a year with which to pay your doctors and pharmacists. Leave it alone when you don't need it and watch it grow. Buy catistrophic insurance at a much lower premium for the emergency-big-stuff.
Shop around for the other stuff. You'd be amazed at the options. We paid $350 for a needed MRI by pitting acouple clinics against each other for a bid. Think out of the box or rather the insurance card.
Its a rare doctor that makes anything upward of 10 million dollars like Health Insurance CEOs ! Very few are even close to being any kind of millionaire. That's a myth.