There are few issues with greater potential to change our lives, for better or worse, than health care. Medical science and technology is entering a golden age where research into genetics, biotechnology, and the mind/body connection hold great promise and hope for people suffering terribly with disease and painful disability. Along with that great promise, however, comes the great risk that our new medical insights and innovations may benefit only a few — those with adequate health insurance and access to affordable health care.

This week, The Washington Post reported that the overall cost of health care doubled in the period between 1993 and 2004. It now consumes more of the nation’s economic output (16 percent) than ever before. The price of every General Motors vehicle includes more than $1,500 that goes directly to health care for the company’s workers. Small businesses are staggering under a mounting accumulation of double-digit increases in health insurance costs for their workers. Many find they must cut back, or cut out, employee health insurance to stay in business. As the population ages, the health care crisis only deepens, and more and more sick and injured persons are showing up at fewer and fewer emergency rooms to be treated by fewer-still certified personnel; their numbers have been diminished dramatically by escalating medical liability insurance premiums.

Emergency departments are required by federal mandate to screen and stabilize all persons regardless of their ability to pay.  They are the last, frayed lifeline for people who have run out of health care options. This week, The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) released a national report card on the state of emergency medicine. The nation as a whole scored C-. ACEP declared the country’s emergency health care system to be in “serious condition.”

The good news is that Connecticut was rated third in the nation, behind California and Massachusetts, with a grade of B. The state won high marks for providing good overall access to emergency care and for its quality of care and attention to patient safety. It was also cited for having good public health and injury prevention policies. The physicians gave the state an F, however, for its failure to act on an issue close to their hearts: medical liability reform, which they see as a key component to efforts to bring health care costs under control.

Notwithstanding the state’s high national ranking on this issue, the economy and overall quality of life in Connecticut is threatened by the escalating costs of health care and the increasing inability of ordinary people to afford health insurance and their medical bills. Funding has been cut back in recent years for one of Connecticut’s most enlightened programs, HUSKY, which provides health care for uninsured children and, in the neediest cases, for family members and caregivers. Employers are already cutting back on health insurance benefits for legions of workers who are trying to make up the difference out of already strained household budgets. As needs increase, funds decrease. It’s not a good trend.

Connecticut’s budgetmakers in Hartford need to understand that the emerging health care crisis is also an economic crisis and a social crisis that may quickly overwhelm all the other problems before them. The state needs to quickly address ways to foster a system of affordable health care for all its citizens. Medical liability reform would be a good place to start.