PEORIA -- At first glance, Peoria's May 30 forum on health coverage seemed forbidding. It included a large panel, only written questions submitted from the audience, and rules that included no videotaping except from "accredited media," whatever that means. (As in who 'accredits' the media!)
But the forum turned out better than expected. The panel included people with expertise who could dispel misinformation. Even Cong. Aaron Schock, R-18th/Peoria was articulate and accommodating, though unlike Cong. Phil Hare, D-17th (see story below), he waffled on the issues, and always has 'concerns.'
Here's what Schock said when asked if he would support single payer coverage: "I have concerns. I'm not sure a government takeover of services is going to control the costs....we need efficiencies. I don't think single payer is the solution. It doesn't control costs."
Schock called for insurance pools for small businesses, a reform that could be enacted quickly while Congress works on systematic reform. He talked about how Peoria's hospitals are going to enjoy federal money to upgrade their computerized systems, but didn't mention that he voted against the stimulus bil and the children's health insurance bill.
In response to another question, Schock said the Medicare drug program, with its donut hole that leaves patients paying for their own prescriptions, is "deficient and inadequte." But he talked only about an Illinois program that could fill the gap.
What about requiring drug companies to bid on prices? "I do not support mandated rates. I do believe there needs to be profit in the system. A capitalist-driven system makes (American health care) great."
No one on the panel called him on these issues -- such as his non-answer to bidding, which works for other government providers of health care. Or on his lack of ideas for controlling costs, from inflated bills and empire building from hospitals and doctors to sky high pay for insurance executives.
A caustic comment about those salaries drew applause from the audience, which totaled 125 people who signed in.
So don't look for Schock to support single payer. Oddly, the government program of insurance to provide competition for other insurers never came up.
The panelists all expressed concerns about the current system, its high costs, its bureaucracy, deception and unfairness. Horror stories from the panelists and the audience came out.
The event was hosted by the Health Care Justice Campaign, a project of the Campaign for Better Health Care, a Champaign-based group. Panelists included Brad McMillan, Facilitator, Director, Institute for Principled Leadership at Bradley University; Mary Patton of the AARP; William Albers, M.D.; Laraine Bryson, President, Tri-County Urban League; Ron Cox, Vice President, West Central IL Labor Council; Tammy Finch, owner, Web Tech Services, East Peoria; Katie Jones, MSW; Executive Director, Mental Health Association IL Valley; Rev. Joy Schlesselman, President, Central IL Inter-Faith Alliance; and Donald J. Crane, M.D. of Crane Gilmore & Associates, Inc.
Crane was one of the more interesting speakers, as he is trying to find solutions for reforming the system. "We have identified efficiencies" to save money so as "not to burden the taxpayer," he said.
They include evidence-based medicine, more prevention and education for patients, and perhaps certain types of rationing, though he would not call it that.
He talked about the folly of providing expensive procedures to the extreme elderly and demented who will not live long anyway. He told one story of a family who ordered such care, because they could not let their mother die, and compared that with his own family's approach to a similar situation, where the mother did die without prolonged expensive and painful treatment.
Albers supports single payer care such the Canadian system and Medicare. Medicare and Medicaid are flawed, he said, and underfunded. Single payer is not socialized medicine, he said, where the government hires the doctors and runs the hospitals as in England.
He had an answer to cost control: a quasi-independent panel "like the federal reserve" to set government payments. Schock didn't seem to hear him.
Albers expressed concern about the trend in Peoria to construct expensive new facilities for specialized care, while basic care and prevention are neglected. He also mentioned tort reform, but acknowledged it doesn't contribute to the majority of the high costs, though it does encourage unneeded testing.
Health care cost control falls into several categories, from high administrative costs, inflated prices for care ($25 pills, $4,700 scans) to expensive new buildings, seven figure salaries, and the like, the event showed.
Patton of the AARP had some practical ideas, including a program for follow up care after hospital stays, to reduce the high rate of rehospitalization for Medicare recipients.
Reforms should make the programs sustainable, Schock said, and keep the basic training and research infrastructure of medicine in place, Albers said.
Whether the event will have any effect on the one person whose vote now matters, Schock, remains to be seen.
-- Elaine Hopkins
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