TERRE HAUTE —
Supporters cheered as protesters railed Sunday afternoon, voicing America’s division on a health care bill described as historic and apoplectic, depending on whom one asks.
Likewise, local physicians had mixed opinions that afternoon as wire reports confirmed the number of votes needed by congressional Democrats to pass a bill redefining the financing of American health care. But pro and con alike, two local doctors agreed that politics have muddled the topic.
Dr. Jim Turner, a family practitioner in Marshall, Ill., and the volunteer medical director of Terre Haute’s St. Ann Medical Clinic, said the bill is much needed and will benefit the country. Still, he was disappointed at how political the topic of health care has become and noted that the millions of dollars spent lobbying politicians could have funded “hundreds of St. Ann Medical Clinics across America.”
The free clinic on Locust Street serves those without insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, and Turner said the thousands of patients seen there each year demonstrate the need for expanded coverage.
“I see it every day,” he said, describing the majority of the clinic’s patients as employed taxpayers who can’t get insurance but don’t qualify for government assistance.
Dr. James Stephens, chief of staff at St. Vincent-Clay Hospital as well as a private practitioner, agreed that the political process involved in the long-running health care debate “stinks,” but predicted the new regulations “will destroy the best health care system in the world.”
“No,” he said when asked if he believed in the affordability of the legislation’s requirements. “I think the figures are all smoke and mirrors,” he said, predicting the complex regulatory requirements will eventually hike the true cost into the trillions. “And I don’t see any way that it will reduce our deficit either. And there are so many higher taxes that are associated with this bill, I think it will eventually bankrupt our economy.”
Turner, on the other hand, likened the legislation to the creation of Medicare, the government’s health care plan for senior citizens enacted in the 1960s, which opponents likewise said would fail.
“And it’s one of our more successful programs,” he said, attributing the system’s current financial perils to its own achievements. “The problem with Medicare is that it’s worked,” he said, noting American life expectancy has nearly doubled since its creation. That increase in life expectancy is simultaneously Medicare’s biggest credit and liability as more citizens are on the system longer than its designers foresaw.
But the numbers Stephens crunched on included the bill’s 2,700 pages, 1,700 regulations and some 161 new agencies which will oversee its regulation.
“And with 1,700 new regulations, I think it’s just going to paralyze our delivery of health care,” he said, arguing the true goal of President Barack Obama’s signature legislation is the redistribution of wealth and government expansion. Every new regulation issued a hospital requires more time and money spent in administration and less on health care delivery.
Stephens recalled the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, the initial intent of which was to safeguard patient privacy. Upon its passage, a multi-billion industry sprang up “overnight” to service the needs of that requirement in medical offices, costing health care facilities a fortune that could have gone to patient care, he said.
“With the bureaucrats, it’ll be about money and not about health care,” Stephens said, arguing the government officials employed in the hundreds of new oversight agencies will “cripple” practitioners’ ability to practice.
But at least there will be more jobs, Turner said.
“Health care is a good industry to have,” he said, citing Union Hospital’s 2,800-strong workforce as an example. Even with double-digit unemployment throughout the country, jobs in the health services sector have remained solid. “And the unique thing about health care is that these dollars don’t go overseas,” he said.
Regarding the overall cost of the legislation, Turner said room abounds for savings.
Bill or no bill, Americans need to take responsibility for their own health in terms of diet, exercise and the use of tobacco. Smoking-related pulmonary problems are one of the nation’s largest health care expenses, he said, on top of excessive testing. If Americans change their health habits and physicians become more judicious in their use of technology, the costs could shift dramatically.
“If we just do that, our health care dollars will drop markedly,” he said. “And so it won’t just be the government that needs to change its paradigm and reduce costs.”
But part of that change might include an exodus of physicians who opt to quit the profession rather than work under the new regulations.
“I most definitely think that will happen,” Stephens said when asked about polls indicating substantial numbers of doctors would rather quit than practice under the new legislation. In conversations with his colleagues, Stephens said “a majority” have said “they would never have gone to medical school in the first place” if they’d known what kind of interference was to come. Several colleagues are simply planning to retire, and he predicted that America “won’t see the best and the brightest going into medicine” as a result.
Turner disagreed.
“I think that’s all propaganda,” he said, describing the sheer volume of work and investment needed to become a physician, high school through residency. Most physicians enjoy their work, and legislation which brings health insurance to more patients would not inspire them to quit. “We’re still getting some of the best and brightest students in America wanting to go into the medical profession,” he said, describing it as a “great job.”
Overall, the myriad of groups involved, from providers to insurers to patients, make American health care a very complex machine, and one which will continue to evolve, he said.
“It’s a very complicated mechanism to try and pull 300 million people in together, but I think this is a step in the right direction,” Turner said, noting his certainty that more details will be ironed out as the process moves forward.
In the long term, Turner said the idea of creating a single-payor, or expanded Medicare system, which covers all citizens “has some pretty solid legs under it and has been discussed for years.”
Medicare, he said, is “a pretty efficient system” and one which could be gradually revamped over a 15-year period to eventually cover all Americans. “The seniors aren’t complaining about their Medicare,” he said of the program’s efficiency. “They don’t want to lose it.”
Going to one, single-payor system would also eliminate the costs of dealing with various commercial insurance companies, he said.
Stephens agreed that this is the general end to which the current legislation is headed.
“I would say that Democrats and Progressives have taken a giant step toward total control our lives. This bill, to me, is not about health care at all. It’s about bigger government and redistribution of the wealth, higher taxes and the destruction of our democratically-elected republic,” he said. “What out America, this is just the beginning.”
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