Panel explores healthcare reform
By: Kathryn Caggianelli
The Albany Record
Published March 8, 2006
ALBANY - Though they couldn’t agree on the mechanism for change, four physicians who sat on a panel Tuesday at WAMC’s Linda Norris Auditorium, explored the need for establishing a better healthcare system nationwide. They unanimously agreed that a “one-payer” system was the way to go.
There are 43 million people who are uninsured in the U.S. and 16 million who are under-insured. Often, the people who most need health insurance are often least able to afford it, experts said.
The concept of Medicare for All, an expanded program geared toward providing comprehensive high-quality healthcare to every citizen was put under the microscope along with other proposals to address the disparity. The socialization of medicine does not come cheaply, panelists said.
It was the first in a four-forum series sponsored by the Capital District Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and the League of Women Voters, as well as a number of co-sponsors. The discussion, led by Alan Chartock, president of WAMC, saw a good turnout and accomplished at least one of the goals organizers had in mind, physician Paul Sorum said.
“We brought together a distinguished group of experts with different views but the same goal and heard them agree on the fundamental notion that we need to make high-quality healthcare available for everyone,” he said.
Initiating discussions of this nature in the Capital District and laying the groundwork for future talks is a way to educate the public. Everyone has a stake in the future of healthcare, Sorum said.
“If (at the series’ conclusion) we can come to a consensus and figure out a way to proceed, that will be a major achievement,” he said.
Physician Elizabeth Higgins, Sorum’s colleague, began the discussion by recounting how one of her teen-aged patients had fallen through the cracks of the existing healthcare system when her mother lost her job and her health insurance benefits. The girl, who suffered from mental illness, could no longer receive medication and dropped out of school as a result. Eventually her mother went back to work and was able to enroll in another health insurance plan, but in the interim her daughter suffered needlessly and lost a year of school, Higgins said.
“This kind of a case is an outrage. We are the only industrialized nation that links health insurance coverage to employment,” Fein said. McGee said he agreed with Fein that health insurance should not be linked to a person’s employment.
Creating a one-payer health insurance system prototype and testing it in one or more states at a time was an idea that all four panelists seemed to support.
Lazarus proposed an AMA-driven healthcare system that would offer tax credits to help defer the costs of healthcare. Under the AMA plan, people would be able to choose their own type of health insurance.
Cromie talked about non-profit health insurance entities, like CDPHP, that bear the burden of administrative costs bigger, profit-making providers can better afford. In a one-payer system, rationing of services, streamlining administrative costs and providing the highest quality of care in a consistent fashion would be a few of many goals.