Health-care reform topic of Troy forum

Carl McCall, former state comptroller and AARP ambassador, speaks at a forum on health care Thursday in Troy.

TROY - The national health-care system is a crisis in the making that rivals, and will likely surpass, what is currently happening on Wall Street unless significant changes are made, according to a panel of experts who spoke on the topic Thursday at Russell Sage College.

The forum titled "Voices for the Future: Ensuring Affordable and Quality Health Care for All Americans" was sponsored by AARP New York and part of Divided We Fail, an AARP initiative seeking government action on health and financial security.

As many as 46 million Americans are currently uninsured, and of that number, 29 percent say they have skipped treatment, tests or prescriptions due to costs. The U.S. spends $1.9 trillion on health care annually, said AARP Ambassador Carl McCall, former state comptroller.

"It is important for businesses, consumers, the medical profession, and the government to sit down and talk about how we can solve one of the most important issues facing Americans today," said McCall. "We need to urge our elected officials to work together and put partisan politics aside to get the job done and provide affordable, accessible health care for all."

Creating universal healthcare - or at least making vast improvements to the nation's current health-care system -rank among the top concerns expressed by American workers in a recent poll by the Employment Law Alliance. A survey of 1,159 workers conducted one week after Democratic and Republican presidential tickets were announced, named workers' number one concern as finding a new job if they should lose their current one. The second biggest concern was the cost of employer-sponsored health-care plans.

In New York between 1991 and 2004, personal health care costs grew an average of 6.3 percent per year. The average total single premium rose form $2,677 in 1998 to $3,592 in 2003 for employees enrolled at private firms in the state that offered health coverage, which was an increase of 34 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to AARP.

Panelists Michael Elmendorf of the National Federation of Independent Business, Physician Joan Dascher of the Russell Sage Nursing & Health Sciences Department and Chuck Bell of Consumers Union shared their perspective on the topic.

The current health-care system is not giving consumers the best bang for the buck, said Bell, whose organization publishes Consumer Reports magazine.

"We spend about 16 percent of our gross national product on health care and 40 million Americans aren't even covered," he said. "We need to use the money we have more efficiently."

In 2007, health care spending in the U.S. reached $2.3 trillion and is projected to reach $3 trillion in 2011 and $4.2 trillion by 2016, under the current system, according to findings from the National Coalition on Health Care.

The existing health care system does not protect Americans from financial catastrophe should a health emergency arise, Bell said.

"The first and most important step we have to take is to get everyone into the system," he said.

The notion of having health insurance coverage tied to employers is somewhat unique to the U.S., Bell said.

More government ownership of the health care system would require better oversight and management of the money that is currently spent on such things as subsidies for big business and compensation to special interests, he added.

At present, the focus is on diagnosis and treatment rather than prevention. Good palliative care is not something U.S. health care supports, said Dascher.

"Each of us as an individual has to start thinking about the health of populations and on our own responsibility to staying healthy," she said.

Eighty-five percent of small business owners identify finding affordable health insurance for themselves and their employees as their biggest challenge, said Elmendorf.

"Between 2001 and 2007 premiums went up 78 percent ... Taxes and energy costs are all going up, too. As a business owner you can't just decide not to pay your utility bill and you can't just decide not to pay for the diesel that runs your truck," he said. "It's a problem for everybody but it's impacting small businesses disproportionately."

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