Below is a press release for an upcoming presentation on single-payer health coverage. The speaker is a leader in Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan (HCHP).
HCHP's immediate goal is to build a consensus for HR-676 which has good support in Congress but needs still broader support to become law.
Now that Indiana is a blue state, the time is right to get Hoosier lawmakers on board with one of President-elect Obama's campaign goals. HR-676 is the best means of reaching that goal.
I'd like to attend, but I'll be at a City Council meeting harvesting some of Grover Norquist's bounty.
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NEW ALBANY, In --- A forum on national health care featuring one of the nation's experts on health care insurance will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday Nov. 20 at Indiana University Southeast. Dr. Rob Stone of Bloomington, IN, one of the founders of Hoosiers for Commonsense Health Plan (HCHP), will be the speaker. There will be a public discussion following the powerpoint presentation.
The event will take place on the second floor of the IUS library on Grantline Rd. Sponsors are the Southern Indiana branch of HCHP and the IUS Department of Sociology. The event is free.
A spokesman for HCHP said that the forum will tie into one of the key planks of President-elect Barack Obama's platform on health issues. Questions on the problems of health insurance for post-college students, for those who are not covered by employee plans and for Medicare patients in need of supplement insurance will be answered.
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11 comments:
Mr. Gonder:
Have you really looked into this group's "Plan?" It is VERY radical. All privately owned health care facilities-hospitals, clinics, HMO's, nursing home, diagnostic centers- would become government owned or not for profit.
Only doctors would be allowed to make a profit.
The owners of these private facilities would be compensated only for the value of the property that they own. So, I guess if you own stock in an HMO, you are pretty much SOL. Also all the investment that private investors, including doctors, have put into diagnostic and other facilities.
This is from their web site.
By the way, the Kaiser Foundation web site says that only 5-7% of health care costs are "administrative' (i.e. insurance companies). So, even if you eliminate 100% of those costs, you only absorb about one year's worth of healthcare inflation. Hardly a long term answer.
RR
No, it is not "VERY radical". Please come to the free program on Thursday night at 7 p.m. IUS Library 2nd floor and have your questions answered. The single-payer, universal plan we support - H.R. 676 (the Conyers resolution)(which has over 94 co-sponsors in the House and is supported by over 14,000 physicians, among many other groups) provides for publicly funded, privately delivered health care. Much like Medicare, people would still choose their own doctors, but instead of 1500 different payers, there would be only one - the Federal Govt. Did you see David Ross Stevens'editorial in today's C-J? Please read it and you'll have a better understanding. You are confusing this with "socialized medicine", which is, indeed, where the government owns the facilities and employs the medical staff. That would be like the Veterans Administration and like some European systems. U.S. health care ranks 37th in the world (World Health Organization) but costs almost twice as much as any other country's. I could go on and on. Just please read the C-J article and then check out www.pnhp.org (Physicians for a National Health Program) for the facts. More and more people support a single-payer, realizing we need systemic reform - not just a bandaid here and there.
RR:
The cut of the health care dollar the interloper class receives is in the mid teens. Medicare's administrative costs run around three per cent.
The U.S. opted out of a system where drug costs, similar to the one used for the Veterans Administration, could be negotiated for large groups when medicare Part D was passed.
The U.S. falls behind the rest of the developed world on so many objective and economic measures of health care delivery that I would change your comment to say, "if your are depending on an HMO for your healthcare, you're SOL."
When health care is seen as a right versus a privilege, the profit motive is not a first line consideration. The morality of the system, however, should be.
rr
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend Dr. Stone's program Thursday due to a previous commitment.
But PLEASE go to the forum at IUS and listen to what Dr. Stone has to say. I think he will clear up your mis-conceptions.
Shirley Baird
Thanks for your comments.
I am open to an "open forum" on healthcare, but this group promotes a specific plan which they do not seem to want questioned.
For example, from THEIR web-site, regarding some outsiders questioning the 2-3% admin cost of Medicare-(which frankly sounds like a number that should, at least, be questioned) they respond:
"Recently, Right Wing Think Tanks have released studies claiming that Medicare costs are far higher than 3%..."
So, if you question their numbers, you are automatically a Right Wing Think Tank?
Also, some of you seem to question the idea that private health care facilities would be put out of business.
I did not make that up. Please check our the FAQ where it says:
"The NHI program would compensate the owners of investor owned hospitals, group/staff model HMO's, nursing home and clinics for the loss of their clinical facilities as well as any computers and administrative facilities needed..."
My point is simply this. The idea of looking at ways to restructure our system of healthcare is valid.
However, one needs to first objectively identify the issues which include where the dollars are being spent, and not go in promoting a "plan" and then trying to make the numbers "fit" your plan. That is all I am saying.
RR
Yes, of course HCHP and PNHP support "a plan" - H.R. 676 - which was not pulled out of thin air. Of course a lot of research and exhaustive study were done before formulating this single payer plan. We appreciate your interest, and your questions would be answered. But do not expect Dr. Stone or any of us to fold like a cheap lawn chair and exclaim, "oh gosh, why didn't we think of that? Guess we'll just give up trying for national health insurance like EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY HAS." As for Medicare's approximately 3% administrative costs: we did not make up that number. It is widely accepted. The disputation around that number comes from the fairly recently added cost to the government for the idiotic and totally unnecessary Advantage Plans. We, the taxpayers, pay the private, for-profit insurers a "commission" to sell these bundled plans to Medicare recipients, which obviously adds to Medicare's overhead.
Once again, you're invited to attend Thursday's event and be devil's advocate if you wish. We have had, and expect to have, push-back and objections to overcome. I believe we are prepared.
Meantime, I'll close with a quote for you to guess the speaker (no fair scrolling to the bottom).
“We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. . . we need – and we must have without further delay – a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.”
- President Harry Truman, address to Congress - January 5, 1949
This is right up my alley, in fact helping with the very individuals that this is to address is my job.
I too understand this group as being very radical much the same as rr had said.
However I plan on doing my best to attend.
*** of course, then again, I have not seen a representative of this group who want equal healthcare availability to all knocking at our clinics doors to offer help... It takes more than words and ideas folks.
Get in the trenches with the rest of us, not in the insurance fattened private practitioners offices, get in the grant funded community health centers who are struggling to care for the people that no one seems to want to have to deal with...
Christopher D
Yes we are trying to help your clients who "fall through the cracks" in the healthcare system.
In fact our office got a call from a local hospital about a patient of ours. She is a 59yr old woman suffering from A-Fib and she needs a Cardioversion. She is also uninsured. Our doctors charge $250.00 for this service and we do allow people to make payments and will allow uninsured patients to pay the same amount as Medicare reimbursement. Someone from the billing dept. of this hospital asked about the severity of this lady's condition so they could postpone the test until they could arrange for her to pay a substantial down payment for their bill. They added that they would defer to the physician's decision. Our employee told them that we do not postpone a procedure if the patient is uninsured.
Our doctors may be "insurance fattened" cardiologists but they do care about their patients first and their bank accounts second.
BTW I work for Commonwealth Cardiologists.
Shirley,
I am not directing that at local doctors offices. And Commonwealth Cardiology IS in the trenches with us, as your doctors help to care for our indigent patients.
In fact it is quite an impressive list of local physicians and physicians groups who are dedicated to the community and provide care for the medically underserved in our communities.
Aside from the basic premise that a truly functioning civil society should provide its members health coverage AS A RIGHT, the failure to do so by the United States places our workers at a competitive disadvantage to the workers in all other industrialized nations on earth.
Witness the dire situation our automobile companies face. Although much of the trouble is a spillover of demand erosion from other parts of the economy, and this affects auto companies both foreign and domestic, the U.S. companies are swimming wearing lead weights. The U.S. companies have to build inflated private health coverage for their workers into each vehicle they produce. Other countries spread this cost throughout their economy. Their auto companies can spend more on quality and research and development; some estimates place the per-unit cost of health coverage for an American car at around $1,500.
Free market proponents tout the benefits of a "level playing field", our lack of universal health coverage puts us beneath the plane. We need to rise to the level the rest of the industrialized world has already reached.
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