Log In


Reset Password
Archive

Headlines On Health Care

Print

Tweet

Text Size


Headlines On Health Care

Of all the headlines swirling across front pages last week — Iraq, immigration, tornadoes — one presented itself against the general backdrop of serious trouble in a rather hopeful light. Soaring health care costs have saddled individuals, families, and businesses with an economic burden that has weakened the knees of our country’s vaunted quality of life. In the middle of all the dire news reports on other subjects, there was upbeat talk on just this subject coming from the President of the United States in Bridgeport and from the State of Massachusetts.

The President was in Connecticut hoping to interest a distracted nation with what he viewed as good news about health savings accounts, which allow people to set aside money for health costs in tax-free accounts. Advocates of this approach to health care financing see it as a kind of 401K account that can be drawn on to pay the high deductibles of lower cost health insurance plans. The system is supposed to foster a more discriminating population of health care consumers while providing a vehicle for accumulating wealth for people who manage to stay healthy, promoting healthy lifestyle choices. While they have their critics, health savings accounts may prove to be a useful alternative for some individuals and businesses staggering under the costs of traditional health insurance plans.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a Republican governor and a Democratic legislature, with the collaboration of insurers, business leaders, hospitals, and even advocates for the poor, produced a plan for nearly universal health care for the citizens of that state. By all accounts, it was a miracle of compromise and political fortitude. It has received rave reviews in theory. How it is received in practice will depend on how many of the half-million uninsured in Massachusetts will be willing to buy their own coverage and how dedicated private insurers are to offering comprehensive policies that are also affordable. These two assumptions could be the undoing of a great plan.

A recent business council report declared Connecticut to be the sixth-most-expensive state in the nation for health insurance. Family coverage cost consumers $10,119 in 2003 and has risen steadily since then. That may explain why there are 400,000 people in our state without health insurance.

There is clear cause for the state legislature to set universal health care for Connecticut as a priority. The formula may include health savings accounts, it may incorporate parts of the Massachusetts model, or it may even be a single-payer plan. Whatever the solution, it first needs to once again empower patients and their physicians to make the critical decisions about health care rather than leaving medical judgments in the hands of insurance company clerks. It will require political fortitude, and it may require a miracle, but until we try, we can expect soaring health care costs to remain in the headlines long after wars, cultural clashes, and tornadoes have come and gone.

Comments
Comments are open. Be civil.
0 comments

Leave a Reply