On Tuesday night in Bellevue, Senator Karen Keiser (D-Kent), chair of the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee, and Representative Eileen Cody (D-Burien), chair of the House Health Care & Wellness Committee, held their second in a series of four healthcare town halls.
Of the first two events in the series, Senator Keiser said she believes, “These are marvelous. Democracy in action.”
Thus far the town halls have gone smoothly and have been largely disruption free. That is in stark contrast to what people have seen from national news sources. “People have a lot of concerns,” said Senator Keiser. “It’s a wonderful development, they’ve been misrepresented.”
This town hall attracted several more members of the political world, including Senator Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue), Representative Ross Hunter (D-Bellevue), Steve Hill, Administrator of the Health Care Authority, and former State Representative Max Vekich, who is currently running to be a Seattle Port Commissioner.
Senator Keiser and Representative Cody emphasized the need for a transition to evidence based methods in healthcare policy, which will help reduce healthcare costs. Keiser cited the $55 million in savings in 2008 on prescription drugs when the drugs were compared by patient outcomes and the effectiveness of the drugs rather than their cost.
Washington legislators are now working with Congressman Jay Inslee to adapt some of that language for H.R. 3200, the healthcare reform bill from the House of Representatives.
Federal healthcare reforms would include consumer protections that prevent rescission, the practice of taking insurance away from consumers after they have become ill, extending health benefits of younger adults that are on their parents’ health plan to the age of 26, ending gender discrimination, and ending cost-sharing for preventative care, such as expensive colonoscopies.
Another key theme in the discussion was aligning physician incentives to patient outcomes. Currently, if a patient has the wrong arm amputated and has to go back in to get the other one removed, the hospital would be paid for both operations. Keiser said that under the new system, “Avoidable errors will not be reimbursed.” That would mean only “paying the hospital when you have recovery” she said.
Confronting popular misnomers in the media, Keiser assured the crowd, “There will be no death panels. There has never been a death panel.”
The pair also confronted reimbursement inequities around the country. Keiser said, Washington is 11% under the national average for Medicare reimbursements, and Florida is 13% over the national average. Yet Washington State has better outcomes, said Keiser.
Currently, taxpayers and people with health insurance pay for those who do not have health insurance but utilize medical facilities. “Healthcare is a system of cost shifting,” said Keiser. “We pay one way or the other.”
Posts Tagged ‘Steve Hill’
Washington legislators hold second healthcare town hall
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009Tags: Basic Health Plan, Eileen Cody, Health Care, Health Care Authority, health partnership plan, Healthcare, Healthcare Town Hall, Jay Inslee, Karen Keiser, Rodney Tom, Steve Hill, town hall, Washington
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Legislators Talk Healthcare Reform in Washington State
Friday, August 7th, 2009On Wednesday, June 3rd, the Washington Policy Center sponsored their 7th annual Health Care Conference. A morning panel of Representatives Eileen Cody (D) and Doug Ericksen (R), along with Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA) and Department of Retirement Systems Director Steve Hill and moderator Allen Schauffler, discussed healthcare policy and administration in Washington State.
During the panel, HCA Director Hill said of the Basic Health Plan, “This is an outstanding program and we should stop tearing it apart with political extremism.”
Hill also said, “The elephant in the room is Medicare,” of healthcare politics in Washington.
Representative Ericksen told the crowd in Seatac that Washington needs to repeal Certificate of Need requirements to free business, instead of preventing it, as the case is now. In reply, Hill said, “Without CON (Certificate of Need), healthcare would be a pig trough.”
Representative Cody, who is the Chair of the House committee on Health Care and Wellness, told the crowd, “The bad thing we did was cut universal funding of [children’s] immunizations.”
Traditionally, insurance companies do not cover children’s vaccinations because the State has provided them, free of charge, to local physicians. Thus, vaccines are not included in standard healthcare coverage plans. The State purchases vaccinations for a reduced, bulk cost of just a few cents per vaccination. By eliminating the Universal Vaccine Program, Washington State physicians will be faced with the decision of providing vaccinations without compensation or to cease supplying vaccinations all together.
Vaccine-preventable diseases have reached record lows over the past several years. This is because of the great strides we, as a State, have taken to ensure that each child is guaranteed immunizations. Without those vaccines, long-term costs associated with vaccine-preventable diseases will skyrocket.
The more children who are not vaccinated, the more likely we are to see outbreaks of preventable diseases in our neighborhoods. Eliminating vaccination funding is more than an individual concern; it is a serious community health risk. Without these vaccinations, children will be left vulnerable to diseases like Whooping Cough, Polio, Meningitis, Diphtheria, and Chicken Pox.
From a near-term financial perspective, physicians are already being burdened with reduced reimbursement rates for state funded or subsidized health plans, making it more difficult to maintain independent practices and care for their most at-risk patients.
Representative Ericksen called not creating a separate, core benefit plan for people aged 18-34, who tend to be healthier and not require many features of other benefit plans, the great failure of the legislative session.
Tags: Allen Schauffler, Basic Health Plan, Doug Ericksen, Eileen Cody, Health Care Authority, Steve Hill
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »