Sen. Joe Lieberman pledged last week to push Congress to approve health care reforms within the next year, despite doubts in Washington because of partisan differences and the presidential campaign.
Lieberman, I-Conn., convened a panel of experts at the state Legislative Office Building to discuss health care problems facing the state and the nation, including rising medical costs and increasing numbers of people without health insurance.
“It’s pretty obvious that nobody’s happy with the status quo in our health care/health insurance system,” he said. “The single issue that is of most concern to the people of Connecticut over the last several years and today is health insurance.”
There are 47 million Americans without health insurance, Lieberman said, and many of those who have insurance are feeling pressure from rising costs.
Protecting Children
Lieberman is proposing a broad expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to provide universal health insurance for children from birth to age 25. He also wants to give states the authority and funding to provide coverage to uninsured adults through national pools based on the federal employee model.
He added that he was interested in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new plan for universal health care, and another proposal by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans.
Lieberman said there is also a need to contain medical costs, which are increasing at a faster rate each year than the gross domestic product.
But he said pushing reforms through Congress will be difficult.
“But maybe this can be turned around,” Lieberman said. “Maybe the campaign and the election next year will lead people in both parties to want to get something done.”
Several speakers said one of the biggest problems is that doctors, hospitals and other providers are not receiving enough reimbursement from the government to cover the costs of treating Medicaid patients. They said many providers refuse to see patients on Medicaid, the health care program for the poor.
“Providers must get a fair price for the delivery of their services,” said state Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia.
Prague also said senior citizens paying $93.50 a month in Medicare premiums are facing another premium increase, and deductibles are going up.
Promoting Health
Mike Hudson, an executive with Hartford-based Aetna, and John Rathgeber, president and chief executive officer of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, both said promoting healthier lifestyles was an important issue in the health care debate.
Hudson said 75 percent of health care spending is on lifestyle-related diseases from smoking, obesity and other problems. He also said the insurance industry was concerned about the growth of unhealthy lifestyles and a boom in the aging population.
“Those are two very significant forces to be reckoned with,” he said.
Aetna was also focusing on racial, ethnic and geographical disparities in health care, Hudson said. The poor and minorities have higher rates of diabetes, asthma and infant mortality, he said.
Another issue is high cost of treating uninsured people, including illegal immigrants, at hospital emergency rooms.
Lieberman said millions of uninsured people use emergency rooms as their primary source of health care and often can’t pay the hospital bills. He said that uncompensated care costs the health care system $35 billion a year, and results in increases in insurance premiums and taxes.
Dr. Rebecca Brienza, medical director for Norwalk Community Health Center, said she has seen a dramatic increase in the number of illegal immigrants in recent years.
“We do not get any revenue from undocumented patients,” she said.
