Advertisement
When the retired IBM worker switched insurance companies for prescription drug coverage, he spent, by his estimate, some 12 hours on the phone with about 22 people — on top of faxing and refaxing forms — to straighten out a glitch.
Forest was one of several people who shared their health care nightmares at a Sunday afternoon forum
at La Crescent High School: being diagnosed with cancer while uninsured, getting denied insurance coverage
for stroke treatment because you went to the wrong hospital.
David Krenz, the superintendent of La Crescent-Hokah Public Schools, said half of the school district’s extra state funding next year will be eaten up by employee insurance costs — and that’s with a high deductible plan that leaves employees on the hook for $2,000 to $5,000 of their own money.
Dr. James Hart, a physician and a program director at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, blamed the problems on an inefficient health care system where too much of the money goes to administration costs.
In the United States, health care spending accounts for 16 percent of the gross national product, the equivalent of $7,500 per person each year, he said. Much of that goes “just to move the money around.” And in spite of our spending, disease rates for problems like diabetes are higher in America than in countries like the United Kingdom.
Hart’s diagnosis: “It doesn’t pass the common sense test.”
His prescription: a single plan to cover all Minnesotans.
Such a single-payer plan may be a long way off, but state lawmakers are already taking small steps to get there.
The House last week approved a $10 billion health and human services spending bill that included a provision by Rep. Ken Tschumper of
La Crescent to create a committee to study how Minnesota could create a voluntary statewide pool to purchase health care services. The Senate passed a companion bill with a similar clause coauthored by Winona Sen. Sharon Erickson Ropes.
Both the first-term Democrats addressed about 25 people who turned out for Sunday’s forum.
Erickson Ropes said when she was campaigning door-to-door last summer, her constituents were receptive to the idea.
“People get it,” she said. “Universal health care is not free. But if we all pitch in together we’re going to be paying less than we are now and we won’t be leaving people behind.”
But, Erickson Ropes said, universal coverage is still far in the future. “We can’t get there overnight, but I think we can keep moving there one step at a time. Hopefully it won’t take 10 years.”
