Healthcare
I am a strong believer that healthcare coverage
for every American is a right and not a privilege. Every individual
regardless of their ability to pay should be afforded healthcare
coverage. The phrase “I have health insurance so I don’t
care about anyone else” is unacceptable. I have to remind
these individuals that we live in a communal society and many
diseases can easily be contracted when we conduct normal business
within our communities.
Currently the United States healthcare program
spends over $1.4 trillion per year, but over 40 million people
go without health insurance. Medicaid a program that is designed
to help the disadvantaged is a disgrace because more than
a third of eligible citizens in New York State do not receive
it. These are just a few problems with the healthcare system
in our country. Americans today are paying more for prescription
drugs than any other country in the world. Access to quality
healthcare is vacant in most depressed and disadvantaged communities.
More and more community hospitals have fallen short of fulfilling
the community needs. Though most of them put forth the effort
the financial resources are not available. In the end, most
county operated community hospitals close or become privatized.
Despite the fact that most people are struggling
with healthcare coverage, pharmaceutical companies, HMO’s,
and insurance companies still generate profits at the average
citizen’s expense. We have more hospitals closing rather
than opening. The healthcare profession still continues to
struggle to hire qualified nurses and doctors. Though this
all exists, how could health insurance premiums continue to
increase? Ask yourself….Do you have quality affordable
healthcare? Can you select any doctor you want?
These are major reasons why our health coverage
program does not work:
• Out of control prescription drug
cost:
Today there are more pharmaceutical ads
on television than ever before. According to a recent study
these ads have a direct correlation with increases in prescription
drug prices. Pharmaceutical companies are misleading the public
to believe that if you have x, y, z symptoms you have this
disease or condition. Simply put this is wrong. Some may argue
that the public is being educated on the prescription drug
possibilities. My response to that is we should not be falsely
empowering individuals to think they can diagnose themselves
because a commercial identifies their symptoms.
• Accessible Health Care:
One of the major reasons most people do
not have access to care in their community is because it is
not affordable. More and more people are struggling to get
to a hospital to ensure their health needs are sufficed. Even
though most illnesses can be addressed if they were discovered
during routine doctor visits, more people wait until the illness
is at an emergency point before seeking care. The reason people
wait is not because of an unwillingness to go to the doctor.
On the contrary, it is due to a lack of care. We need more
adequate clinics throughout our disadvantaged communities.
Also we should be pushing for Medicaid reform, which loosens
the re-certification guidelines of the program.
• Medicaid Reform:
Currently in New York, each individual county
is responsible for 10 to 25 percent of the cost of Medicaid.
The Federal (50%) and State (25% to 40%) government make up
the remaining portions. The New York State budget for Medicaid
is $41 billion. Of that amount NYS counties pay $6.6 billion
collectively. Keeping that in mind, Medicaid expenses have
been growing by 10.5 percent per year for the last three years.
In most counties this is the highest growing expenditure within
their budget. In the last five years many counties have had
to raise taxes by double-digit amounts to keep up with Medicaid
expenditures. Most residents probably feel the pinch in their
property tax bills. The bottomline is that NYS counties do
not have the revenue stream to deal with Medicaid expenditures.
Most counties generate revenue via sales and property tax.
The other portions are probably departmental revenues (ie
park fees) and State and Federal Aid. A county’s choices
are limited when determining how they will proceed to cover
Medicaid expenses. Property tax is an inelastic tax. The best
way to determine that is to evaluate whether or not your home
value appreciates at a higher rate than Medicaid expenditures
growth rate (10-12 percent per year).
We need to push for reform. Every resident
should understand that 10 to 25 percent of the Medicaid expense
can no longer be pushed down to the local counties. Counties
should not be forced to raise property taxes to pay for this
expense. We should explore a possible State takeover or cap
the current county expense level.
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