Health-care reform draws mixed reaction in Kent

Health-care reform has been a hot-button topic in past weeks, since President Obama’s health-care plan — or at least an altered version of it – survived a major vetting process with federal lawmakers.

Its passage inspired the full gamut of reactions nationally – from celebrations over its promise of getting millions onto the health-insurance rolls, to calls for violence against those who passed the reform package.

Locally, that legislation has drawn passionate answers as well, from multiple sides of the issue.

“It will definitely have a profound impact on the lives of the uninsured, and a positive impact on the lives of the rest of us,” said King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, whose district includes South King County and Kent.

“First of all, millions of people who are uninsured will now have insurance, which means they won’t wait until their conditions become chronic,” she said, noting that as it is now, taxpayers are footing the bill, to pay for severe, untreated conditions that their fellow citizens are coming into emergency rooms with, because they couldn’t afford earlier treatment.

“The rest of us are paying that for our health-care premiums,” Patterson said, of the cost of health-care being driven up by unfunded care. “Either we pay in an expensive – and in my opinion – immoral way, or we pay in a reasonable way for these people to be insured.

“Quite honestly, I don’t understand what there is to be afraid of here,” the councilwoman added, of those adamantly opposed to health insurance that covers all.

“If we don’t oppose Medicare, why would we oppose care to those under that age? What a strange argument to make, in the wake of the biggest economic boondoggle in the history of our nation, where the banking industry went wild. The banking industry destroyed the economy of this country because they were deregulated.

“If you’re hoping the free market will save the health-care industry, clearly the market has not done that, and it has not increased access to health care.”

Longtime Kent insurance agent Rob Cannon sees the reform in a vastly different light.

Namely, that it will come with a costly price tag.

“Well, you’re going to pay for it. You’re going to pay for it in premiums,” he said. “There’s no magic bullet at all. Somebody’s got to get paid.”

Cannon said he was more than a little worried over how the reform would seek to spread – or to contain – the highest-risk uninsured with those of healthy people.

“Let’s say you were Blue Cross or any of those (insurance agencies) and you’re told you have to insure everyone,” he said. “Then you find out someone your insurer is forced to cover has a severe, preexisting medical condition.

“She’d better not be paying the same premiums I am,” Cannon said.

The agent also said there would be a tremendous chilling effect on the insurance market, as companies were now forced to cover high-risk patients.

“Almost every health-insurance company in the state of Washington left,” Cannon said, of a time several years ago, following another health-care reform effort.

Cannon also pointed out his concerns as a small-business man, dealing with a federal mandate about health-care coverage for his employees.

“As an employer, that’s going to kill me,” he said. “I’m just a small business.”

Cannon also raised concerns over Big Government and its track record with other, nationalized plans involving buy-in from the public.

“Without changes, by 2037 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted – they’ll only be paying 76 cents for each dollar owed of benefits,” Cannon said, reading from a Social Security statement he’d just received in the mail.

“If this (Social Security) is going broke, than how are they going to manage this?”

From the social services standpoint, Mike Heinisch of Kent Youth and Family Services said the reform was good, but it’s not enough.

“First of all, I’d say I’m disappointed that it’s not as extensive as it originally could have been, but that being said, if we’re ever going to reform the the health-care system, we need to put a stake in the ground and go from there.

“It’s certainly going to enhance (health-care access) for people who previously didn’t have access.”

Heinisch said he didn’t think the people currently getting health insurance would be seeing increased costs.

“As far as you and me and the rest of the people in Kent, is it really going to affect our health-care costs? I don’t think so,” he said. “But I think (with this reform legislation) we’re dropping the ball on controlling costs. When you see the profits, salaries and bonuses (of those in the insurance industry) it probably adds to the bottom line of not controlling costs.”

Heinisch said he thought the reform legislation would be a good starting point in creating a large risk group, which potentially could allow that cost containment to happen.

“If everybody is involved, the system has a chance to work,” he said.

From the medical standpoint, Diana Olsen of HealthPoint said the reform will finally allow an underserved group of people access to a basic necessity.

“It’s definitely affecting people’s lives,” she said. “We (HealthPoint) have supported it. We’ve wanted it from day one because we see so many people who are uninsured.”

HealthPoint is a private, nonprofit agency that operates 12 primary-care medical and dental clinics in the King County region, located in medically underserved areas, including Kent.

As far as concerns that high-risk health conditions would drive up insurance costs for everyone, Olsen responded, “I think we’re already paying for it. Where do they go when they get sick? They go to the hospital, the emergency room. So then that, in turn, comes back to us in increased costs.

“I see this (healthcare reform) benefiting everybody.”

Olsen wondered, though, if by giving everyone access, another form of access would become a problem.

“Access is still an issue,” she said. “Everyone would have insurance, but are there enough doctors?”

One thing is for sure, though, Olsen said: preventative, basic health care is a key part of keeping costs in line, and people healthy.

“If we make people healthy, we make healthy communities,” she said.

To learn more about the federal health-care reform package, go to: www.healthreform.gov.

For a general overview about the U.S. plan and other countries’ plans, go to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform.

To see the Republican Party’s take on the plan, go to: www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare/resources.

To see the Democratic Party’s take, go to: www.democrats.org/a/national/affordable_health_care/