Health care questions
Local residents speak out on reform plan
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
LarryM@argusobserver.com
Saturday, September 26, 2009 11:06 PM PDT
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| Larry Meyer | Argus Observer
Dr. Brad Barlow (from right), emergency room physician, Sarah Sherman, emergency room coordinator, and Bruce Iwasa, nurse, work at the main desk inside the emergency room at Holy Rosary Medical Center. The cost of hospital care is one of the issues of the health care reform debate. |
ONTARIO —Tony Klein, Klein Insurance in Fruitland, does not want a single payer option when it comes to health care.
Vicki Mosier wants more support for patients in dealing with pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
Ray Waldo, a board member of Malheur Memorial Health District, which operates a rural health clinic in Nyssa, wants to know if there will be a change in the way rural health clinics will be reimbursed.
Questions linger, debate is often intense and many area residents see the stakes for health care reform to be high.
“I don’t think single pay is a good option,” Klein said. That is what Canada does, he said.
“The health insurance industry in Canada is thriving. Insurance picks up the pieces the government doesn’t,” Klein said.
He noted that system is how it works with Medicare and Medicaid and the supplements provided by insurance companies in the United States.
“It’s not a matter of putting insurance companies out of business,” he said.
Another worry for many is the private health care option, where the government would help provide coverage through insurance companies.
Klein said his concern is whether or not those companies would be paying taxes or be nonprofits.
“I don’t care if the government has a private option,” he said.
He said he wants a level playing field. If those companies in the private option pay taxes, he does not object, he said.
Waldo said he was still unsure how a government reformed health system would work.
“I don’t know the impact of the health plan,” Waldo said.
In serving an economically depressed rural community, Malheur Memorial Health Clinic receives a reimbursement on Medicare and Medicaid patients it serves and charges patients on a sliding fee scale. The clinic also has a number of patients who don’t pay, Waldo said.
“We write off about $15,000 a month. That is the way it is,” he said.
Waldo said he does not know if, or how, the various health care reform proposals would change the reimbursement system to the clinic and plans to look into that issue.
Mosier, a cancer survivor, said during her illness it has been a real battle with the insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms. Going to Boise for treatment has brought fights with her insurance company. The company said that she was not covered going to a hospital situated in Idaho when she lives in Oregon, Mosier said. They wanted her to go to Portland, she said.
“It’s been a real problem,” she said.
She said she hopes the people writing health care reform make sure that patients have a lobbyist for them.
Holy Rosary Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Mark Dalley submitted a paper from the Catholic Health Association regarding what that corporation would like to see in any health care reform bill.
The major points of the Catholic Health Association paper focus on preserving provider conscience protections and support abortion neutrality and not an abortion coverage mandate. The paper also advocates instituting support delivery system reforms that improve the quality of care and ensure sufficient and fair financing with shared responsibility.
Although it does not support any of the health care reform bills, Catholic Health Association does advocate expanding Medicaid to cover everyone under 133 percent of the federal poverty level, coverage for immigrants, documented an undocumented, provide subsidies for low-income individuals and families up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level and reforming the health insurance market by prohibiting preexisting condition exclusions.
Dalley said the Catholic Health Association’s position generally represented Holy Rosary Medical Center’s position as a Catholic hospital. Issues not being addressed include undocumented immigrants and problems in the legal arena, such as malpractice, Dalley said.
Klein said that some health care insurers have already said they will no longer exclude people with pre-existing conditions.
“I’m anxious to see what, if anything, will gets passed,” Klein said, adding he is skeptical there will be any legislation at this time given the division there is in Congress.
Larry Meyer is a reporter for the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at LarryM@argusobserve.com.
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Larry wrote on Oct 1, 2009 2:18 PM: