Supporters at forum push for state health-care system
The plan would attract business to the state, officials said.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 9, 2007
NORTH JACKSON — Supporters of a single-payer health-care system that would cover all Ohio residents say they hope it is adopted here and becomes a model for a national health-care system.
The Mahoning Valley Chapter of the Single-Payer Action Network Ohio, or SPAN-OHIO, conducted a health-care forum Thursday at United Autoworkers Local 1112’s hall to explain the plan and to get input from government officials and business representatives.
A single-payer system means that one fund, administered by a nonprofit government agency accountable to the public, would make payments for all medical services. In Ohio, it would be called the Ohio Health Care Fund.
Medicare, the federal health-care system for the elderly, is an example of a single-payer plan, says SPAN-OHIO literature.
The UAW has been fighting for 50 years for national health care, said Jim Graham, president of Local 1112 at General Motors in Lordstown and master of ceremonies for the forum.
“Just imagine how easy it would be for GM and other companies to locate in Ohio if they didn’t have to pay huge health insurance bills,” said Graham, emphasizing one of the selling points of the SPAN-OHIO plan.
Need for action
The health-care system in the United States is in such a mess that virtually everyone agrees something has to be done, and that everyone should have access to health care, said Dr. Johnathon Ross, forum moderator.
Ross is director of ambulatory internal medicine at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and associate clinical professor of internal medicine at the Toledo School of Medicine.
Where there is disagreement, he said, is on how to deliver the health care and how to fund it.
Ross said he knows the single-payer plan proposed for Ohio will work and not cost more money than is currently being spent on health care in the state because it has worked in other nations.
The doctor admitted that “we are going to soak the rich” to pay for the system “because we don’t think they are paying enough.”
SPAN-OHIO literature says Medicare operates with just 3 percent overhead, compared to 15 percent to 25 percent for the typical health maintenance organization.
Thomas M. Humphries, president and chief executive officer of the Regional Chamber, a business organization, agrees that something has to be done about the health-care system.
“Is this [single payer] the right plan. I don’t know yet,” Humphries said at the forum.
He said there are 1,340 people in the health insurance business in this region with a $43 million annual payroll.
“My concern … is what do we do with these people? How do we transition them. I suggest we don’t hurry” into a plan, Humphries said.
Ross said the Ohio plan would take care of workers employed by health insurance companies and others who lose jobs as a result of changes brought about by the Health Care For All Ohioans Act.
They would receive, at public expense, retraining and financial assistance for up to two years in an amount not to exceed $60,000 per year, he said.
The main question asked by panel members was about how the Ohio plan would guarantee accessibility to quality care.
Ross said the public commission that would design the benefits package would not only be accountable to the public, but would have the same insurance. “I think the benefits will be good,” he said.
The bottom line, Ross said, is that the Ohio plan includes public accountability, would not cost more money than currently is being spent and would attract business to the state.