Many Americans are confused by the conflicting information presented on what politicians are debating in terms of health care reform. It turns out, many health care professionals are confused as well.
Health-care providers in Summit County were asked to weigh in with their own opinions to help clarify what is going on and what they think needs to be reformed. Like politicians, they didn’t all agree.
Doug Toole, a Physical Therapist in Coalville, said he, too, has had trouble understanding President Barack Obama’s plan. He said he does agree with the president that health care has become too expensive and is too large a portion of the total money spent in this country.
“I don’t think the country can tolerate the cost of health care as it is right now,” he said Thursday. “We pay the most of any country in the world and we don’t necessarily have the best health care of any country in the world.”
Obama in recent weeks has tried to rename his efforts from health care reform to health insurance reform.
Toole said he isn’t as worried about insurance companies as he is about plan administrators who don’t give patients options.
“We accept what insurance does,” he said. “It’s what it is, that’s what you have to accept”
He said no one should restrict a patient’s right of choice. They should be able to go to who they want for treatment. That provider, if they’re willing to accept the payment, should be able to treat them. If a patient chooses a provider that is deemed too expensive, insurance companies should have the right to say no, he said.
Critics of the president like to use the word “socialized medicine” to describe his plan. Toole said America already has socialized medicine with its Medicare plans. He uses it himself, and doesn’t have an opinion on it, but said it’s not something new to this country.
Dr. Wain Allen, East Side primary care provider, said he’s tried to make himself familiar with Obama’s plan, but has noticed that there really seems to be about three under debate.
“I think there’s a lot of rhetoric that’s inaccurate and politicizing. For the actual plan, I’ll hold judgment until I can see and review it,” he said.
The biggest problem Allen sees in the current system is that fear of malpractice lawsuits is forcing physicians to provide high-tech procedures for people who probably don’t need them.
This is raising the cost of health care and Medicare is already overspent, he said.
“It’s on rapid slope to run out of money,” he said. “Defensive medicine is a huge cost,” he added. “I think it’d make more sense to go to a no-fault malpractice insurance, like auto insurance.”
He said he mostly agrees with the president that insurance companies are keeping too much of the money paid to them. Obama has complained that they have been posting record profits amid the recession while the cost of premiums continues to rise. Allen pointed out that Medicare is able to operate on much lower overhead than private insurance companies.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has said that the taxes on premiums are a major problem. Allen said he’s experienced that problem personally. If someone is insured through an employer, that money taken out is not taxed as income. If someone is self-employed, like himself, then the money spent on insurance is taxable. He said it’s a schizophrenic approach.
Allen also said he agrees with the president that insurance companies should be required to take all applicants and not refuse coverage to anyone.
“Premiums would go up, but everybody would get coverage. For the underinsured, premiums should be a tax credit,” he said.
Finally, Allen defined socialized medicine as a society with only one health care system. Current reform proposals are not that, he said, they’re “a graduated step toward more involvement of government in medicine.”
He said he’d prefer to see government focus on issues like tax policy regulating insurers and stay out of something as complicated as medicine. That’s a conservative standpoint, but he said he’s heard identifiable lies told on conservative radio about what is being debated.
David Teasley, a plastic surgeon in Kimball Junction, said he’s tried to read Obama’s bill. It’s about 1,000 pages and full of legal jargon.
That makes him nervous since that will probably mean politicians haven’t actually read it but are relying on staffers to tell them what it says.
“I have a multitude of concerns. I think this is being rushed through. I think oftentimes we’re seeing far too many political components, and far too few that look at quality of health care,” he said.
Teasley said he doesn’t like the way Medicare is run with its complicated bureaucracy.
“If that’s what government health care will be, I don’t want that,” he said.
Teasley said he too is concerned about the amount of money spent on health care, second only to national defense.
But lasting reform shouldn’t be pushed through, as is attempted now, but should include feedback from professionals around the country and not just “cerebral guys” in Washington, he said.
“This is too important to be rushing through,” he said.
Teasley said he agrees with the president that too much money is kept by insurers.
“We control the price of electricity and water. Shouldn’t we put some limit on earnings for these companies?” he said.
Like banks, the executives of health plan administrators are receiving huge bonuses despite the recession, he said. These same companies effectively cap what a provider can charge, why can’t a cap be put on them, Teasley wondered.
Teasley defined socialized medicine as a system where physicians are basically government employees. He said he would not use that term to characterize the current debate.
“I’d call it fair health care,” he said.
Bill Pidwell, a physician and administrator at The Park City Clinic, said he’s as confused as anyone.
He said he supports Obama’s calls for more money from insurers covering preventive procedures. Pidwell said he believes that many problems and diseases could be prevented if he had sufficient time to give patient consultations. But because they’re not funded by insurance, and he has to see a certain number of patients per day to pay the bills, there just isn’t the time.
“We’re reimbursed considerably better for procedures and far less for counseling and preventive measures,” he said.
He also agreed with the president that insurers keep a disproportionate share of the premiums. That doesn’t mean doctors should make more, he said, it means premiums should cost less.
“I think they should have some kind of profit regulation.,” he said.
Pidwell said he’d define socialized medicine as one party, usually the government, paying for everything. That’s not what is proposed, he said.
“They’re looking for a hybrid of that,” he said.
If someone can’t afford to pay for their own health care, there should be options from the government.
Pidwell said he understands that critics have said private companies won’t be able to compete in a free market if the government does that. But in his clinic about 15 percent of patients are uninsured. That doesn’t work either, he said.
“A hybrid makes sense,” he said. “And the concept of preventive care is a key aspect to make all this work.”
State senator Allen Chistensen, a Republican representing North Summit, said he believes a “train wreck is eminent.”
He said all the parties at play want to hold themselves harmless while calling everyone else the “bad guys.”
The Legislature set up a task force to address the problem of rising costs and Christensen admitted it’s a “tangled web,” but he said it’s moving forward and making progress. He said the Obama plan would untangle the web “with a bomb.”
“Yes, we need reform to make our health care more affordable and more accessible but when was the last time that we gave up our rights to a government entity and it produced results more efficiently that we could privately? America should not surrender more of her hard won freedoms in the name of expediency,” he said via email.
Rep. Christine Johnson, a Democrat from the Avenues who represents the Basin, also gave comments via email.
“Our needs for coverage have never been more urgent than in this current unemployment crisis and I place bill passage as higher priority over bipartisan ship. Because if we foolishly dare to believe insurance companies are sitting quietly by, passively awaiting legislative changes to the status quo, we are mistaken. Corporate objections and fear of making mistakes can continue to stall legislative process, but reasons to move forward will always have more merit. We can amend changes as necessary, but let’s at least take the leap,” she said.
Summit County’s other senator and representative did not respond by deadline.