No happiness with health policy
Conference leans toward national health care. Participants say crisis coming without changes.
By ANTHONY SALAMONE
The New Jersey Express-Times
Friday, October 20, 206
BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. | The slide showed excerpts from a 2005 story about Toyota hiring automotive workers in Ontario, with the company citing the quality of the Canadian province’s work force.
“Everyone knows it’s crap,” said Dr. Walter Tsou. “The reason why they chose Ontario is because they don’t have to deal with the enormous health-care burden (compared with costs in the U.S.)”
Tsou joined two other guest speakers Thursday during Lehigh Valley Business Conference on Health Care’s 26th annual meeting at Candlelight Inn & Conference Center.
The meeting focused on national health insurance, and while many opinions arose during the meeting, which drew about 75 people, no one remedy emerged.
“That wasn’t the purpose,” said Kitty Gallagher, the organization’s president. “The purpose was to begin the discussion (locally).
“This is an issue that needs to be discussed; we can’t go on the way we are.”
Tsou’s, whose group, Physicians for a National Health Plan, supports a national insurance program, laid out how the current situation has left some 46 million people go uncovered.
Many businesses, including the former Bethlehem Steel Corp., have stopped subsidizing retirees’ benefits. Agere Systems Inc. plans to stop paying coverage beginning in 2008.
Tsou predicted more people will lose insurance and the system will worsen, unless businesspeople exert more influence in which way things should head.
He also said a national plan would foster competition.
“It gives the customer what he wants, and I believe the customer wants quality, affordable health care, ” said Tsou.
Jim Bentley with the American Hospital Association said the group also supports universal coverage with standards for determining what is “medically necessary,” among other factors.
Bentley and John Parker of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association agreed serious problems exist, but opportunities have surfaced to build on some current programs. They include health savings accounts, which help individuals save for qualified medical and retiree health expenses tax-free.
Bentley also said since most people are healthy, they don’t comprehend the crisis, controversy or complication of health insurance.
“We have to help society understand what the current system is like, what the options are for the future, and what the trade-offs are,” said Bentley.
Anthony Salamone can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at tsalamone@express-times.com.