“Health Care For America Now Activists Seek Comprehensive Coverage and Cost Containment,RadioView,BOSTON/Government Center – Saying she and her peers have “really inherited a broken system ” recent medical school graduate Dr. Sylvia Thompson was one of about a dozen advocates expressing support for national health care financing reform at a press conference Thursday at Boston City Hall. “We’ve inherited a system where my diabetic patients lose their feet because they don’t have enough money to buy test strips to test their blood sugar every day.” Dr. Thompson who serves as Chair of the national health policy committee of the American Medical Students Association added “people can’t wait ten years for reform. These people need reform now.” Questions such as how to lower medical and administrative costs and extend health insurance coverage to more Americans are part and parcel of several reform debates on both Capitol and Beacon Hills. Members of Health Care for America Now a coalition that includes Jobs with Justice Northeast Action Health Care for All Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and the United Food and Commercial Workers union say they want the most progressive reforms they can get; including a single payer national health plan. But they’ll accept a “strong public insurance option” that competes with private health insurance. Cynthia Ward Executive Director of Northeast Action based in Jamaica Plain MA and Hartford CT said one advantage of a public medical reimbursement plan is the portability. “No matter what happens with your job or your health status it would always be there. People wouldn’t have to worry about switching doctors it would always be there. “Second it provides affordable coverage to everyone. And then what a lot of people were talking about today is a way of restraining costs. It would be large enough to provide meaningful competition to private insurance companies both on cost and on quality.” In a stark reminder of how difficult it has become to afford health care and other necessities of life the coalition released a report this month that concludes “In the last nine years the cost of health insurance has risen 120 percent while wages grew only 29 percent.” The report “Health Care Costs for Massachusetts Families Continue Climbing” predicts that by next year 52 million Americans will be without health insurance. For the time being the Health Care for America Now coalition isn’t supporting any particular bills in Congress. Cynthia Ward said the coalition has been applying its cost and quality principles to a number of proposals including those by President Obama who has mentioned the Massachusetts Commonwealth Connector as a possible national model. The Massachusetts system was enacted in 2006 and mandates insurance coverage through the purchase of private plans with the help of public subsidies. More citizens than ever are covered but the Connector and its companion free services face severe budget cutbacks. This week for example the Connector’s Board of Overseers voted on changes that would save $10 million dollars by eliminating dental coverage for 90 000 people on the Commonwealth Cares program. Overall according to state officials subsidies will be reduced by $115 Million. Proponents of single payer reform think significant cost savings will come when the private insurance industry is eliminated and the federal government takes responsibility for reimbursing doctors for the costs of providing medical services; as is done under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Russ Davis a Health Care for America Now coalition member who heads up Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and supports a single payer model said “ultimately the goal is to get rid of insurance companies. But a robust public option could be a step in the right direction.” Northeast Action’s Cynthia Ward thinks campaigns for health care reform must recognize she stated that “people are loathe to give up what they know [i.e. the current for-profit system] for what they don’t know.” Medical debt was another issue addressed at Thursday’s Boston City Hall event. Mark Rucavina Executive Director of the Boston-based Access Project a ten year old resource center that supports local initiatives to improve access to health services said the numbers of people with overwhelming medical debt “have been climbing.” “Between 2005 and 2007 the percentage of American adults under the age of 65 with medical debt jumped from just over 20 percent in 2005 to 28 percent 1 in 4 in 2007.” That’s a surprising increase said Rucavina. But what’s most surprising he added “is the fact that the vast majority of them had insurance at the time of their medical incident.” He said his organization is studying “what makes people so bare when they get sick.” In Massachusetts and other states health care related campaigns are looking at reducing the ratio of patients to nurses in hospitals and mandating paid sick days for American workers. But within the various frameworks looking to reform how to pay for all this medical care the delivery of services rests with doctors nurses and other professionals. Norris Kamo a student at Harvard Medical School who spoke in favor of reform at Thursday’s event said the incentive for doctors to prescribe expensive tests leads to budget busting costs. “Right now we have a fee for service reimbursement system which means you do more you get paid more. So what we’re thinking is having a payment system based on quality. “Right now there are a lot of institutions working on providing more effective and efficient care but they’re getting penalized for not ordering the inappropriate amount of tests and that’s very frustrating for medical students and doctors.” Many activists say “health care is a human right.” On Thursday Northeast Action Field Organizer and Boston City Council candidate Felix Arroyo Jr. speaking about public alternatives to profit driven health insurance gave an example he hoped would stay in people’s minds. “As a Boston public school graduate I am damn happy that when they said education is a right…that they didn’t say you had to go to private school to get that right. So if we believe that health care is a right a fundamental right it seems to me that private insurance should not be the only option…” OMB Audio: Excerpts from the Health Care for America Now Coalition public speak out at Boston City Hall on Thursday June 25 2009. Speakers in order: Dr. Sylvia Thompson Norris Kamo Russ Davis Cynthia Ward and Felix Arroyo Jr. Web Resources: http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/ http://www.accessproject.org/new/pages/index.php http://www.neaction.org/ http://www.massjwj.net/ http://www.amsa.org/ Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati ,Creative Commons 3.0 BY,06/26/2009 - 10:40,Health Government Center,Health Government Center 761,“Health Care For America Now Activists Seek Comprehensive Coverage and Cost Containment
BOSTON/Government Center – Saying she and her peers have “really inherited a broken system ” recent medical school graduate Dr. Sylvia Thompson was one of about a dozen advocates expressing support for national health care financing reform at a press conference Thursday at Boston City Hall. “We’ve inherited a system where my diabetic patients lose their feet because they don’t have enough money to buy test strips to test their blood sugar every day.” Dr. Thompson who serves as Chair of the national health policy committee of the American Medical Students Association added “people can’t wait ten years for reform. These people need reform now.” Questions such as how to lower medical and administrative costs and extend health insurance coverage to more Americans are part and parcel of several reform debates on both Capitol and Beacon Hills. Members of Health Care for America Now a coalition that includes Jobs with Justice Northeast Action Health Care for All Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and the United Food and Commercial Workers union say they want the most progressive reforms they can get; including a single payer national health plan. But they’ll accept a “strong public insurance option” that competes with private health insurance. Cynthia Ward Executive Director of Northeast Action based in Jamaica Plain MA and Hartford CT said one advantage of a public medical reimbursement plan is the portability. “No matter what happens with your job or your health status it would always be there. People wouldn’t have to worry about switching doctors it would always be there. “Second it provides affordable coverage to everyone. And then what a lot of people were talking about today is a way of restraining costs. It would be large enough to provide meaningful competition to private insurance companies both on cost and on quality.” In a stark reminder of how difficult it has become to afford health care and other necessities of life the coalition released a report this month that concludes “In the last nine years the cost of health insurance has risen 120 percent while wages grew only 29 percent.” The report “Health Care Costs for Massachusetts Families Continue Climbing” predicts that by next year 52 million Americans will be without health insurance. For the time being the Health Care for America Now coalition isn’t supporting any particular bills in Congress. Cynthia Ward said the coalition has been applying its cost and quality principles to a number of proposals including those by President Obama who has mentioned the Massachusetts Commonwealth Connector as a possible national model. The Massachusetts system was enacted in 2006 and mandates insurance coverage through the purchase of private plans with the help of public subsidies. More citizens than ever are covered but the Connector and its companion free services face severe budget cutbacks. This week for example the Connector’s Board of Overseers voted on changes that would save $10 million dollars by eliminating dental coverage for 90 000 people on the Commonwealth Cares program. Overall according to state officials subsidies will be reduced by $115 Million. Proponents of single payer reform think significant cost savings will come when the private insurance industry is eliminated and the federal government takes responsibility for reimbursing doctors for the costs of providing medical services; as is done under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Russ Davis a Health Care for America Now coalition member who heads up Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and supports a single payer model said “ultimately the goal is to get rid of insurance companies. But a robust public option could be a step in the right direction.” Northeast Action’s Cynthia Ward thinks campaigns for health care reform must recognize she stated that “people are loathe to give up what they know [i.e. the current for-profit system] for what they don’t know.” Medical debt was another issue addressed at Thursday’s Boston City Hall event. Mark Rucavina Executive Director of the Boston-based Access Project a ten year old resource center that supports local initiatives to improve access to health services said the numbers of people with overwhelming medical debt “have been climbing.” “Between 2005 and 2007 the percentage of American adults under the age of 65 with medical debt jumped from just over 20 percent in 2005 to 28 percent 1 in 4 in 2007.” That’s a surprising increase said Rucavina. But what’s most surprising he added “is the fact that the vast majority of them had insurance at the time of their medical incident.” He said his organization is studying “what makes people so bare when they get sick.” In Massachusetts and other states health care related campaigns are looking at reducing the ratio of patients to nurses in hospitals and mandating paid sick days for American workers. But within the various frameworks looking to reform how to pay for all this medical care the delivery of services rests with doctors nurses and other professionals. Norris Kamo a student at Harvard Medical School who spoke in favor of reform at Thursday’s event said the incentive for doctors to prescribe expensive tests leads to budget busting costs. “Right now we have a fee for service reimbursement system which means you do more you get paid more. So what we’re thinking is having a payment system based on quality. “Right now there are a lot of institutions working on providing more effective and efficient care but they’re getting penalized for not ordering the inappropriate amount of tests and that’s very frustrating for medical students and doctors.” Many activists say “health care is a human right.” On Thursday Northeast Action Field Organizer and Boston City Council candidate Felix Arroyo Jr. speaking about public alternatives to profit driven health insurance gave an example he hoped would stay in people’s minds. “As a Boston public school graduate I am damn happy that when they said education is a right…that they didn’t say you had to go to private school to get that right. So if we believe that health care is a right a fundamental right it seems to me that private insurance should not be the only option…” OMB Audio: Excerpts from the Health Care for America Now Coalition public speak out at Boston City Hall on Thursday June 25 2009. Speakers in order: Dr. Sylvia Thompson Norris Kamo Russ Davis Cynthia Ward and Felix Arroyo Jr. Web Resources: http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/ http://www.accessproject.org/new/pages/index.php http://www.neaction.org/ http://www.massjwj.net/ http://www.amsa.org/ Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati
