What should be the role of government in resolving the health care crisis in Connecticut, where one in ten residents is uninsured? And what viable models for health care reform already exist? Those questions and more were addressed at a forum last Friday sponsored by the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Health Care Council, at which this man expressed some strong opinions.
The forum, titled “Universal Healthcare: The Impact on Business,” drew a full house of mostly small businesspersons and insurance providers to the large conference room at Ashlar Village in Wallingford. Panelists included State Sen. Toni Harp from New Haven, whose day job is directing the homeless health care program at Hill Health Center; Rep. Lenny Winkler, an emergency room nurse; Juan Figueroa, president of the Universal Healthcare Foundation of Connecticut (a donor to the not-for-profit organization that publishes this web site); and Robert D. Noonan, an attorney whose firm specializes in issues related to health care coverage.
It is no longer controversial to declare that the state’s health care insurance system is broken. All four panelists agreed on that.
Juan Figueroa explained that his foundation put out a research paper called “Sounding the Alarm” that includes different models of providing universal health care, each with varying degrees of government participation. Click here to listen to the details.
Sen. Harp said she believes government must be more involved than it currently is, to help reduce what she called health care rationing.
“It’s kind of like the little drip, drip, drip,” she said. “It’s every time it takes you two or three months to get an appointment. It’s when you can only go to a certain provider and that provider can’t see you for a long period of time. That’s the subtle rationing that occurs in our system, and it occurs mostly for those who are in the public programs, but it also occurs somewhat in our commercial insurance.”
She added that Connecticut legislators are looking to the universal health care law that passed earlier this year in neighboring Massachusetts.
Bob Noonon (pictured above) said the role of the federal government is mostly to deal with tax codes and provide flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts and reimbursement arrangements. “The federal government acknowledges the fact that the health care delivery system is broken,” he said, but that it is not capable of providing solutions. That’s the job of the states, under the current system. He said state proposals range from requiring companies to provide health insurance (like the so-called Wal-Mart law” in Maryland) to requiring residents to make sure they have insurance, with help provided where necessary by the state (like Massachusetts’s new universal health care law). Click here to listen to the details.
Harp said Connecticut legislators are looking to the plan passed in Massachusetts this year for guidance.
Rep. Winkler described the dysfunctionality of the current system, in which many people without health insurance rely on hospitals’ emergency rooms for their care, sometimes holding off seeking treatment until they are facing true health emergencies.
During the Q&A session, Mary Ann Flynn, who works for a small, non-profitl health provider, said once the state-imposed cap on reimbursements is reached, patients can no longer access her group’s rehabilitation services and must go to a hospital, where they must wait a long time for care. “I’m begging you, as legislation is being made, please think of the private, independent provider. We can provide a lot of health care at a lower cost than hospitals.”
Her comments generated a round of applause.
