By Christaan Perez
In a bid to understand the complexities of the health care system, the University hosted a town hall meeting for experts to analyze the situation and consider possible solutions to the problems plaguing the system.
Members of the forum included Richard J. Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association; Mark T. Bertolini, president of Aetna, a health care products provider; Michael J. Dowling, president and CEO of North Shore-LIJ Health System; Sara R. Collins, assistant vice president of the Program on the Future of Health Insurance; and David M. Weiss, associate professor of the Health Professions and Family Studies department. The town hall meeting was moderated by Alvin Bessent, an editorial page editor for Newsday.
“Twenty-one percent of the U.S. budget is spent on health care,” Bessent said. Yet at the same time, he said the “agenda’s pretty busy right now, and it’s too busy to handle health care.” He said that even though it is a crisis, health care keeps getting pushed off to future generations.
The cost of health care isn’t decreasing with each generation either. “Last year the cost of health care grew by 5 percent,” Bessent said.
Rising health care costs become an issue when health issues are on the rise as well.”34 percent of Americans have a chronic disease, this constitutes 72 percent of the budget for health care,” Bertolini said. “A large portion of the chronic problem is obesity.”
Strangely enough, America’s technological innovation may also be attributed with the rising cost of health care. “More knowledge leads to more needs,” Dowling said. “We do not have health outcomes that match our medical innovations.”
“This country is the innovator for medical advancement and we would lose that in single pay,” Bertolini added.
“For example, the administration costs for the U.S. is 7.5 percent compared with 2 percent for France,” Collins said. He adds that despite France’s success, America cannot simply adopt other countries’ health care institutions.
The U.S. health care system is unique because it is employment-based. According to Weiss, no other health care system ties employment to paying for health care except the U.S.
Bertolini said employer-based systems at the small business level is at the lowest percentage.
Under the McCain policy, the employment based system of health care would be effectively abolished. “McCain would end tax incentives for corporations to supply coverage and give credits to individuals to buy on the free market,” said Weiss. “McCain’s policy would cost more than Obama’s, due to the guarantee that all will be covered.”
The health care industries would need to adjust the risk for all consumers to compensate for high-risk cases.
“Problems will arise if employment-based health care is pulled without replacement,” Dowler said. Each institution of the health care system plays some sort of vital role in the current health care system.
Solutions to the health care crisis will require universal care. According to Weiss, without universal coverage, a solution will be piecemeal.
“There is no cure-de-jour of attacking companies or overspending,” he said. “There is only the illusion of handling one issue at a time.” Collins said the first step toward lowering health care costs is to first get everyone covered, and then the system can be tweaked to lower those costs.
“80 million people did not have access health care last year because they could not afford it,” she said. Despite the need for reform, the inertia for change of the system remains because of the fact that moving health care coverage to a new system frightens the already insured, according to Collins. However, Weiss said it will require a mass effort to obtain positive health care change,
“As more people realize the importance of obtaining health care, there will be an increased move for change,” he said.