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 A healthy debate on health care would makes us healthier and wealthier
by Tom Campbell
December 6, 2007
High on the list of issues North Carolina should address in 2008 is the health of our citizens. Even a cursory checkup finds us ailing, but too many want to point fingers of blame or offer excuses and too few are taking a lead to cure problems. Stakeholders include patients, health care providers, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and government agencies, all with different viewpoints and different solutions.
It is unacceptable for one million of us in North Carolina to have no health insurance. Thirteen percent of our children are uninsured. Taxpayer supported Medicare and Medicaid become insurers, with far too many ending up in emergency rooms where treatment is infinitely slower and costs are dramatically higher. One way or another we all pay for this treatment.
One of the most rapidly spreading health threats, especially among our young, is obesity. Too many of the young use and abuse alcohol, tobacco or drugs. We see corresponding increases in chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Insurance costs could be dramatically reduced by preventing or better managing these chronic sicknesses.
Much has already been said about the disastrous mental health reforms initiated by our state, but the picture grows bleaker daily with federal funding to existing hospitals being threatened. Even as we plunge ahead to close Dorothea Dix hospital in Raleigh and eliminate beds for mental patients in other hospitals across the state we learn that the smaller facility that will replace Dix in Butner is already too small and an expansion has been added. Now that expansion is projected to be inadequate and an addition to the addition is being planned.
Because of a lack of local beds for the mentally ill we turn them out into the streets, where they often end up in our jails, or force the mentally ill into group homes or long-term care facilities where caregivers are often untrained and other residents feel unsafe around them.
Those fortunate enough to have health insurance face unhealthy premium increases. Prescription costs play heavily into those premiums. Rural areas of our state face a growing shortage of trained doctors and predictions of statewide nursing shortages threaten the quality of care. And we haven’t begun to address the demands that will be placed on health care systems as baby boomers reach the most expensive time of life
There are no bad guys in this debate. In truth, we are all in it together and will all benefit from finding solutions. We must start by making a philosophical decision whether our primary posture is one of treatment or prevention of health care problems. We have enough data to know which demographics of our population are most likely to get sick, what the most likely illnesses will be, and how to treat most of them. We could also prevent many of these illnesses.
2008 is an election year, an ideal year to make health care a front burner issue. Not only would we be healthier, but we would also be wealthier if we could reduce health care costs, insurance costs and time lost from work. Because we haven’t had the debate, we spend most of our energy and resources treating sicknesses instead of preventing them. Now is the time to cast a vision for a healthy future for our citizens. Good health care doesn’t cost, it pays.
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