Health care reform a family issue, organization says
As the U.S. Senate heavily debates its version of health care reform, a national non-profit organization named Families USA has released a report outlining the benefits of overhauling the old system.
The Senate’s goal is to debate and hopefully pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before Christmas, moving the reform process into the next step of unifying versions from both houses of Congress and sending the final bill to President Barack Obama.
Families USA pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates that 31 million Americans would receive health insurance by 2019. Florida and a nine other states are projected to close the largest gap of uninsured residents over the next ten years.
According to the organization’s report, 2.5 million Floridians formerly without insurance would have a chance to be covered. On the other hand, if health reform crumbles an additional 3.6 million people living in the state would lose their health care.
Nationally, the CBO estimates that without health insurance an additional 8 million Americans will lose their current insurance over the next 10 years, bringing the total amount of uninsured from 46 to 54 million.
Many hospital systems nationwide are awaiting some version of reform to curb health costs that are skyrocketing and to decrease the amount of uncompensated care. Marilyn Stout, board member for Lee Memorial Health System’s Board of Directors, said reform is needed.
“There has to be a reform because of the fact of what is going on now, generally speaking, the uninsured and uncompensated care in Lee County is tremendous,” said Stout.
Last year the Lee Memorial Health System was responsible for covering $120 million of uncompensated care- including charity care for the uninsured and the difference between the cost of a procedure and what Medicare or Medicaid pays.
As a result of uncompensated care, a “hidden tax” has emerged in Lee County where 27 percent of patients are covering 100 percent of the system’s costs.
“They need to do something, I had hoped for a bipartisan effort and I don’t believe it was,” said Stout.
Stout said it is too early for the system to determine what benefit reform would have for Lee County residents, primarily because details about the bills are constantly changing.
Senators were battling over a public option that was recently removed from the bill. During a speech at Edison State College last month, Senator Bill Nelson said a public option wouldn’t pass in the Senate’s version of the bill.
Now, there is discussion over adding a “Medicare buy-in” where Americans ranging in age from 55 to 64 could buy into Medicare, yet some analysts believe that would result in higher costs since this age group typically has more health problems. It’s not clear if this will stay in the bill.
Children make up a large portion of America’s uninsured.
A Families USA study from 2008 reported that there were 797,000 children without insurance in Florida – or the equivalent of one out of every six children. This is the second highest amount for any state nationwide.
Sixty percent of uninsured children in the state come from low-income families who make an average of $35,200 for a family of three.
The national organization also endorsed the Senate healthcare reform bill on Thursday.
“In the next week, we will reach the most critical stage of the health insurance reform debate,” wrote Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack in the Senate letter. “For the millions upon millions of families that are, and will soon be, priced out of the health coverage and care they need, it is essential to finalize a strong bill so that overdue insurance reform protections are enacted.”