If we won't listen to the president, or the analysts, economists and politicians who back health care reform now, we really should listen to the doctors.
The American health care system is broken and riddled with waste, inefficiency and insufficient value for what we pay for it. And that only accounts for those of us lucky enough to have insurance, even if its costs are soaring every year.
Scott Poppen, a primary care physician and head of the Utah White Coats, puts numbers to it: 110 Utahns lose their insurance every day. The average family pays $12,681 per year, to keep their coverage. By 2019, premiums will cost $21,659 per year. And there's a $2 billion impact across Utah to give care, such as it is, to some 300,000 uninsured residents.
All this while U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, Blue Dog-Utah, won't say how he'll vote on the health care reform package now before the House of Representatives. (All too typically, Orrin Hatch -- champion of the natural nostrums this state is famous for -- has decided the Democrats who favor the legislation are "nuts.")
I'd rather listen to the experts -- the doctors, nurses, social workers and others who deal every day with people unlucky enough to be unemployed, uninsured and sick or injured.
Kim Bateman, a self-described country doctor from Sanpete County, told of an out-of-work relative who awoke one night with excruciating pain in his belly. He called Bateman, who told him he had appendicitis and to get to the emergency room now .
And in a precise example of defensive medicine, the physicians there used two CT scans -- with a price tag of $2,800 each -- to decide the man needed surgery. They removed his appendix with laparoscopy, and he was back on his feet in two days.
"I diagnosed it over the phone," Bateman said dryly.
Others spoke of the stalling tactics insurers use to delay payment or avoid it altogether. Of how caregivers spend a lot of time writing letters to the companies to explain why their insured patients should be covered for care.
There is some good news in this, however. State Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, sponsored a bill that would have the Utah Department of Health look into ways of avoiding Medicaid waste and fraud by establishing a cost-saving continuum of care.
And because federal Medicaid is managed by the states, the model offers a way for states to work with the feds, says Judi Hillman of the Utah Health Policy Project.
"It's so complex. States can do a lot to play off federal reforms, and vice versa," she said.
As complicated as health care reform bill is, it's time to listen to the doctors. Claudia Fruin, a Bountiful pediatrician, notes that Matheson's wife is also a pediatrician. "I think he'll come around," she said. "If he doesn't, he's going to be in trouble with a lot of people. And I can't imagine that his wife wouldn't" be angry.
For all the pros and cons and teeth-gnashing over the federal legislation, the widespread contempt for our president and members of Congress, one thing seems clear to me: Taking the next step to fix our broken system doesn't just make sense -- it's the moral imperative of our time.
