By DIANE COCHRAN
The Billings Gazette Staff
10/20/2008
The nation’s health care system is broken, and Congress is obligated to repair it, Sen. Max Baucus told an audience in Billings on Monday.
“I think in life we only have two choices on most things – try, or do nothing, and clearly we’ve got to try to crack this nut,” Baucus said at St. Vincent Healthcare during one of 10 health care listening sessions across the state. “Doing nothing is not an option.”
Reforming the country’s health care “hodge-podge” – it’s too fragmented to be called a system, Baucus said – will probably be the biggest problem he tackles in his Congressional career, the senator said.
“Maybe it’s a new definition of the term ‘masochism,’ but I have taken it on myself to address this challenge,” Baucus said.
The United States spends more on health care than does any other industrialized nation, but Americans are not healthier than people in other countries. In fact, we’re significantly less healthy.
And the costs associated with U.S. health care are rapidly rising.
In Montana, health insurance premiums increased at more than five times the rate of wages between 2000 and 2007, according to Baucus’ statistics.
Premiums rose almost 90 percent in that time, he said.
Everything should be on the table as lawmakers consider ways to improve health care, Baucus said.
That includes making health insurance a requirement for all Americans and implementing a single-payer system, although Baucus said he didn’t think the single-payer option was realistic.
Ted Cross, a retired small-business owner, told Baucus that health care needs to be simplified.
Cross said he was charged different amounts for two identical medical treatments at the same doctor’s office, and he couldn’t figure out why. When consumers can’t decipher their medical bills, they can’t tell if they’re being overcharged, he said.
“The complexity reminds me of derivatives in the mortgage industry, and we know what’s going on there,” Cross said.
Because it is complicated and disjointed, the health care system can be difficult for senior citizens to access, said Dr. Pat Coon, a gerontologist at Billings Clinic.
“There is a spectrum of services available to them, but the ability to attain them is often fragmented,” Coon said. “Rather than staying at home where they’d prefer to live, they’re forced to move into long-term care facilities.”
There are programs in place to help some people navigate the system, but not everyone qualifies for those programs, she said.
That means some people get better access than others, and physicians sometimes have to decide who gets it, Coon said.
Sue Bailey, program manager for the Yellowstone County Council on Aging Resource Center, urged Baucus to find a way to rein in skyrocketing medical costs.
If price increases continue to outpace inflation, even people who save for long-term care or future medical problems will have trouble paying their bills, Bailey said.
“Almost everyone, if they live long enough, is going to outlive their money,” she said.
Contact Diane Cochran at dcochran@billingsgazette.com or 657-1287.