Over the Mountain Democrats recently sponsored a forum on healthcare reform titled “Crisis in American Healthcare: Is Universal Coverage the Solution?” A standing-room-only crowd filled the Linn-Henley Lecture Hall at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens to hear Dr. Walden “Wally” Retan, state coordinator of Healthcare for Everyone, the Alabama Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), give the keynote address.
Three other panelists also made presentations and joined the discussion: Dr. Max Michael, dean of the UAB School of Public Health; Terry Kellogg, executive vice president and CFO of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama; and United States Congressman Artur Davis, 7th District.
In his keynote presentation, Retan pointed out that, in fact, there are several crises in healthcare, not just one, and focused the remainder of his comments on the rising cost of healthcare. “We spend two times as much as any other country in the world,” said Retan. “By 2016, we’ll spend one dollar out of every five of our gross national product on healthcare. Why? What can be done? What’s the impact? What can be done to make it more tolerable?”
Following the keynote address, each panel member was invited to make a short presentation, and a question-and-answer period by the audience followed.
Retan spoke about PNHP, which was founded in 1987. “We are a group that advocates universal medical care that begins at the moment of birth to the time of death. Permanent irrevocable lifetime care with no exceptions, period. And without the premiums, co-pays and deductibles that make life miserable,” he explained.
Retan admitted that discussions of such care raise a question about the cost, but he argues that that question should come after another: “What is the best care for our people? Decide THAT, then figure out how to pay for it.”
Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Kellogg spoke next, getting a laugh from the audience when he acknowledged that he was “painfully aware that insurance executives ranked just above serial killers” in the minds of most people. He countered some of Retan’s statistics about the rising cost of healthcare with some of his own, pointing out that Alabama has a lower percentage of uninsured people than the national average, and that 54 percent of Alabamians get insurance through their employer. Kellogg suggested that medical costs could be reduced by putting a stop to expensive procedures, especially those for which there is little evidence of effectiveness, such as spinal fusion. He also discussed the importance of cutting hospital-acquired infections. “They kill more people than AIDS and auto accidents combined,” he said.
If there was one thing the panelists seemed to agree on, it was how difficult it will be to reform healthcare in any meaningful way, maintain quality care and make the majority of citizens happy. UAB’s Max Michael summed it up this way: “We all love our doctors, but we hate the healthcare system. We want the toys, but we don’t want to pay for them.” He suggests removing the monitoring of some aspects of care from the healthcare system, allowing people to monitor high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol themselves, for instance.
While he admits to problems with the U.S. healthcare system, Michael pointed out that if someone in the room at 7:20 that night were to start having chest pains, he was willing to bet that the patient would have been seen, evaluated, cathed, bypassed and stented in a local hospital, and in their room with their family by 1:00 am.
Congressman Davis echoed the difficulties of finding a solution to healthcare reform, but advocated the need to try nevertheless. “If you get sick,” he said, “you ought to have access to healthcare. If you were charged with a crime today, you’d be appointed a lawyer. If that’s the morality for people charged with a crime, it damn sure ought to be the morality for people who get sick in this country.”
Like the other panelists, he raised the issue of paying for any kind of reform. “Whatever we do is going to cost an enormous amount of money. And more than we say it will. I do think this is one of the paramount moral issues of our time. The challenge is in the details.”
In the end, one could argue that there were not so many solutions presented as questions raised at the forum, but the give and take between panelists with differing opinions gave the crowd much to consider as the presidential election nears.
“If we don’t get this right, the crisis of healthcare will get worse and worse as time goes on,” warned Retan. “And I don’t think our children will thank us for it.”
PHOTO CUTLINE: Dr. Max Michael, dean of the UAB School of Public Health and
United States Congressman Artur Davis speak at the healthcare reform forum.
