Health Insurance tops reform agenda

Dr. Patricia Maryland, president of St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services, discusses health care in America.


Question: You're on the Citizens' Health Working Group, a committee that's making recommendations on health-care reform to Congress and the president. What do you see as major issues?
Answer: Right now 1 in 7 people has no health insurance. By 2019, 1 in 3 won't. That's pretty significant. We've got to get our arms around it.
We know about the number of uninsured, but so many are underinsured. They're very bare and if anything major should happen to them, it could wipe out their savings.
Q: The committee is holding a community discussion Saturday. What do you plan to ask?
A: We're going to ask four general questions: What health-care benefits and services should be provided? How does the American public want their health care delivered? How should it be financed? And the most important question: What trade-offs are you willing to make?
We can't have everything. We spend $1.8 trillion a year for health care. If health care is going to be financed by the government and major employers, we need some dialogue about how people feel, what the basic level of services are that should be provided and what are you willing to give up. We can't pay for everything; it's just not possible.
Q: What do you see as some of the major changes in health care in the future?
A: The population is aging, and baby boomers are starting to face some major health challenges. And there are more of us. People are living longer, but because of this, they wind up with multiple chronic problems, and managing the care of a person with multiple chronic problems can be expensive.
Q: Do you think people are engaged with the issue?
A: Most of us have touched the health-care system in some way, whether it's through family, the person or friends.
What's important from an Indiana perspective, I believe, is we're trying to build more businesses. Those businesses need to be able to compete effectively, and the cost of health care is such that it's making them less competitive. Think about the automobile industry.