Sections
Neighborhoods
Features
Follow Us
NHI Newsletter
Legal Notices
Some Favorite Sites
- 5 Snacks After 10
- Abram Katz
- African independent
- At Risk for HD
- Back To Basics
- barista
- Branford Eagle
- Business NH
- Conn Art Scene
- Cornwall-On-Hudson
- Crosscut
- CT Business Litig
- CT Capitol Report
- CT Energy Blog
- CT Enviro Headlines
- CT Green Scene
- CT Law Tribune
- CT Local Politics
- CT Mirror
- CT News Junkie
- CT Watchdog
- CTV
- Design New Haven
- Gotham Gazette
- Hartford Guardian
- Josiah Brown
- Karman Turn
- La Voz Hispana
- Laurel Club
- Len's Lens
- Magrisso Forte
- Media Attache
- Media Nation
- Medical Intelligence
- Middletown Eye
- MinnPost
- My Left Nutmeg
- NBC Connecticut
- NH Advocate
- NH Register
- NH Review of Books
- NH Youth Map
- Northampton Media
- OneWorld
- Only In Bridgeport
- Oral History Project
- Reddit NH
- Road To Greenness
- Saved By Design
- See Click Fix
- Smartpill Design
- Specials In NH
- St. Louis Beacon
- Taste Of NH
- Tom Ficklin
- Valley Independent Sentinel
- Voice of SD
- VT Digger
- WFSB-TV
- WPKN Today
- WTNH
- Yale Daily News
- YourCT
Government/ Community Links
- Advocate Calendar
- Agency on Aging
- Animal Shelter Volunteers
- Arte Inc.
- Arts Council
- Beth El Keser Israel
- Bike New Haven
- Chamber of Commerce
- Children's Museum
- City of New Haven
- CitySeed
- Citywide Youth
- Community Loan Fund
- Community Mediation
- ConnCAN
- Creative Arts Workshop
- CT BAEO
- CT Tech Council
- Dariba Referrals
- Data Haven
- Elm City Cycling
- Elmseed
- Empower NH
- Friends Of Wooster Sq.
- GAVA
- Habitat For Humanity
- Info New Haven
- IRIS
- Jazz Haven
- Jewish Federation
- Job Finder
- Junta
- Labor History
- LEAP
- Legal Aid Network
- Literacy Coalition
- Magrisso Forte
- Mary Wade
- Music Haven
- New Haven 828
- New Haven Chorale
- New Haven Reads
- New Life Corp.
- NH Bulletin
- NH Land Trust
- NH Symphony
- NH/Leon Sister City
- NHS
- Orchestra NE
- PAR
- Parents Available to Help
- Pat Dillon
- Peace News
- PechaKucha
- Planned Parenthood
- Police
- Promoting Enduring Peace
- Public Allies CT
- Public Library
- Public Schools
- Public Works
- Rainbow Girls
- Register Calendar
- REX
- ROOF
- SAMA
- SCSU Events
- Share Our Voices
- Shubert
- Solar Youth
- Soul-O-Ettes
- Squash Haven
- United Way
- Urban Design League
- Urban Resources Initiative
- Ward 25 Blog
- Ward 26 Blog
- Westville Chabad
- Westville Renaissance
- Westville Synagogue
- Workforce Alliance
- Yale Events
- Yeshiva NH Shul
- Yeshiva Of NH
- Youth Continuum
Docs, Activists & Big Business Seek a Cure
by Nicole Allan | Apr 30, 2007 9:57 am
(3) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Health Care
“When the change is this close,” one panelist said, “it’s worth figuring out.” So a group representing activists, big business, policy-makers, doctors and activists spent Sunday trying to do just that, as they contemplated how to fix Connecticut’s broken health care system.
The panel, at the Yale School of Management, was a Connecticut-specific part of a weekend health care reform conference sponsored in part by the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut. Though the push for universal care and a single-payer plan was discussed, panelists and attendees also suggested other vital but less comprehensive reforms.
Frances Padilla (pictured at top) of the UHCFCT moderated the panel and set the discussion in context. Despite living in one of the wealthiest states in the nation, she explained, almost 400,000 Connecticut residents are uninsured. Family health insurance premiums are the sixth highest in the nation. Through research and awareness efforts, the UHCFCT has organized a grassroots campaign focused on universal, affordable, and sustainable health care. A recent report the group released proposes “realistic approaches Connecticut can take to create a health care system that better serves the needs of all of its residents.” To read more of the report, click here.
Though the state legislature is currently considering several of UHCFCT’s proposals, Padilla conceded that “the leadership has been generally noncommittal.” So on Saturday, May 5, universal health care supporters from around the state will rally in Hartford.
Another advocate for change was panelist Bill Curry (pictured), a columnist for the Hartford Courant. Curry, a two-time gubernatorial candidate who served as state comptroller and an advisor to President Clinton, is well-versed in politics on both a state and federal level. “I’m skeptical about the political scene at a federal level,” he said, explaining why he thinks the state is one of the most important landscapes for health care reform.
Curry criticized the Democrats for pursuing universal health care with little attention to fiscal responsibility, and the Republicans for talking of health care reform while remaining firmly against government expansion. “As Americans, we love our democracy,” Curry joked, “but we hate our government.”
Panelist James Stirling approached the question from the point of view of the large employers he advises as vice-president of Stirling Benefits, a health care consulting firm. Right now, he said, these employers are known by health care reform advocates as “the coalition of the unwilling.” This was not always the case—in the 1980s, Connecticut employers attempted various reforms only to stop short at the roadblock of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The act regulates employee benefits like health care and makes reforms on a state level quite difficult. At this point, Stirling said, big employers “don’t give a hoot about universal health care. They care about making money.”
In order for any reforms to have a chance of enactment, Stirling asserted, they must appeal to these employers. As a start, he suggested a fixed-cost employer-paid coverage plan that would not appear too threatening to employers.
In stark contrast to Stirling’s views were those of Beverley Brakeman (pictured), the director of Citizens for Equal Opportunity, a coalition of various community groups calling for corporate responsibility on health care.
Brakeman advocates passage of a universal health care plan. “People tease me because they think I’m the only one who believes a single-payer health care system to be feasible,” she smiled. “And maybe I am - -but we have a responsibility to do this.” Brakeman lamented the position of small business owners who cannot afford health care plans for their employees and middle-class citizens who are reluctant to rely on profit-driven insurance companies. For a report on just how much profit these companies are making, click here. “Just to reiterate how broken our system is,” Brakeman said: “It’s worse than it’s ever been.
Matthew Katz (pictured), representing the medical community, agreed with Brakeman on this last count. “We can’t just throw money into a broken system,” he said. “We have to fix it.” Katz, director of the Connecticut State Medical Society, focused on the disastrous effects of the current health care system on physician-patient relationships. Due to the rigidity of insurance plans and various anti-trust laws prohibiting doctors from mobilizing to protect their profession, many excellent physicians trained at Yale and the University of Connecticut’s medical schools are leaving the state or the active medical profession en masse. Those who remain work mostly on their own or in small coalitions, and thus struggle with the same health care difficulties faced by other small business owners in Connecticut. Katz called for a system that would ensure quality patient care while adequately reimbursing doctors—a system of incentives.
Several New Haven doctors in the audience expressed the sense of disenfranchisement Katz described. A professor from Ohio’s Case Western Reserve (pictured) asked the audience if there was any way doctors could rally against insurance companies to protect their practices. But he never received an answer, as the panel, the second-to-last event of the conference, came to a close and chattering attendees dove into heated discussion with the panelists.
The buzzing crowd seemed to agree with an assertion made by Curry: “When the change is this close, it’s worth figuring out.”
Post a Comment
Comments
posted by: James Stirling on April 30, 2007 12:17pm
Dear Nichole Allen.
Good photo’s and a well reading article, however, I think you missed some of my points. ERISA is not in the way of reform, it is part of the overall landscape and so can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Yes, it can hinder state efforts, but so do many other competative forces. I do not speak for big businesses, I am a small employer myself, but from my experience with medium companies - 50 to 400 employees. And my firm is not a consultant, but a third party administrator.
Employers are focused on profit, that’s what they do. I did say that individual business owners are concerned about the social justice issues, but that is not their business concern. You did get right that when the business community believes that universal coverage will make them more profitable, and their costs more stable, they will sign on. Until then, they will resist.
Best to you. James Stirling
posted by: steven wolfson, m.d. on April 30, 2007 1:32pm
Actually, I thought that the doctors present, and the Executive Director of the State Medical Society answered the question directly: in defense of our patients and our profession, we are fully prepared to oppose the insurance companies. We are working with the Universal Health Care Foundation, and will be represented at the rally May 5.
Steven Wolfson, M.D.
posted by: cedarhillresident on April 30, 2007 8:57pm
I sit here a lower middle income person wondering why are people even fighting this?? Why? If done right… working with all the buissness small and large, doctors, hospitals this can turn into a really great thing! Everybody can be a winner. We have places that have done it and we can see where it has failed for them. Use those mistakes and make this work!
Do you no why alot of people stay on state and city assistants…because they do not want to lose the health care. If you offer the health care the abuse of those funds will shrink! That is money saved. People being able to have well health care will save a forutne. if they can go to the doctors before they are so ill they need to go to the hospital. Then hospitals and the doctors don’t get payed for those visits becase the people don’t have the money. And then the upper middle class and higher income people say why don’t they just go to the doctors at first…. why you ask…because $100 dollars is ALOT of money to many of us. it is a weeks worth of food for our children it is almost a half a weeks pay to alot of us!! So you just pray that the higher powers will make you better that and every home remedy that you know!
Even some of us that have health care can not afford the co-pays!! You pay for a precetage of your insurence and then of top of that with medicine it still cost a days pay to go to the doctors!
A small company in New Haven that a friend worked for a few years back only offered health care to the employs they wanted to offer it to…......What!! “Oh the mexicans can go to the clinics they don’t need it” WHAT!! oh your a single mother go on the state medical… WHAT!! And I have a feeling alot of companys have this practice to. One goverment insurence company! take out the middle man! Stop letting the people of this state from being raped by these medical insurence companys that are putting us broke!!
