|
|
|
|
SK Chamber hosts business & health care forum |
|
Monday, 31 August 2009 |
Part 1 of a 3 part series on health care
presented on successive Fridays
By CARL CRITZ
WAKEFIELD – Health insurance took center stage at the South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce hosted forum on business issues facing congress at the chamber headquarters on Tuesday.
Representatives from the Ocean State Policy Research Institute (OSPRI), a Rhode Island-based think tank, were at the forum to answer questions regarding any analysis of the policies being considered by Congress.
The discussion replaced a meet and greet with Senator Jack Reed at the same venue, which was cancelled by the senator due to a scheduling conflict.
OSPRI members in attendance included president and fellow for education and welfare policy Bill Felkner, president and fellow for small business Thomas Linehan, and director of communications and fellow for regulatory affairs and environmental policy Brian Bishop.
Moderating the discussion was Clay Johnson of the chamber who lead the debate towards the heated national discussion of health care at the behest of several audience members. The national chamber of commerce is one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., having spent over $385 million from 1998-2008 on lobbying, according to Bishop.
“This is a good opportunity to see what’s coming down the pike, small business issues, particularly health care,” Johnson said.
The session was scheduled to seek a conversation with the local business community to come to a greater understanding of the specific issues facing local small businesses.
“I expected the hot topic to be health care,” Bishop said. “We are so focused on that at town hall meetings this summer about how the decisions impact the national plan. It’s different from a business perspective to blame anybody on a mandate, where unknown expenses on the private side could be higher than eight percent. What alternative plans will be there?”
I send that question back to the business community. You [Johnson] pointed out that the chamber is opposed to mandates, which takes the pressure off companies. I support an individual mandate but again a business could say why are businesses even associated with health care the way they are?”
The answer, according to Bishop, lies with labor laws after World War II that married health insurance companies with employers, resulting in the employment-based health care system that dominates US health care.
“Businesses do focus on cost but they have a sense of what health care costs will be on any side of the health care bill,” Linehan said. “Social Security is on the verge of collapse, states, major cities, towns and teacher unions are facing massive unfunded liability, even before Obama the welfare state was facing an insurmountable debt.”
Linehan said that over 7.5 million businesses are currently collecting unemployment premiums, and with the de-coupling of credit worthiness starting the economic tumble followed by bailouts, a takeover of American auto firms, and stimulus plans, the national focus has now shifted to health care reform.
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OBM) estimates that the overall national deficit will climb to $9 trillion in the next six years,” Linehan said. That number could climb as high as $27 trillion by 2030. “It’s stupefying how big it is and it will come back to the consumer, their children, and certainly their children’s children. Even now businesses are feeling this pinch.”
Linehan also pointed out that legislation such as the Waxman Markey climate change bill, a 1,427-page document will end up costing the taxpayer even more with its strict regulation of production of the six major greenhouse gases.
Linehan stated that an auction type market has already arisen for the trading of permits that will be issued for the production of these gases among big industrial firms.
With 85 percent of America’s energy produced by fossil fuels, according to Heritage Group between 2012 and 2035 the bill will lower Rhode Island’s GSP to $1.1 billion, result in 8,700 lost jobs in the state alone, and raise gasoline prices by as much as $1.35.
Individuals forced into a four-tier government health care system are going to be affected by price controls and standards that are based on age, not overall health according to Felkner. “A normal consumer will look at the plans and have a self-selection process. But the idea that the government will step in and provide competition is a rigged game. What private company can compete against a government-subsidized competition?”
“Price controls on the purchase side, laws don’t even allow a health rating, only an age rating” Bishop said. The design is such that once something changes which is likely to happen to an individual with existing health coverage, such as an illness or birth, insurance will no longer be based on health risk. The plans offer up to a 100 percent difference in age, with older people being charged more.
“One realistic focus is that there are 40 million uninsured in America,” Bishop said. “I would be that guy who is unemployed and can’t make his COBRA payments. I was uninsured for 15 years out of the home, I never missed it but that doesn’t mean that can’t happen to me. The government wants to get the young in to balance the system.”
Bishop said that the current health care system debate often looks like a solution in search of a problem, and would rather see companies allowed to compete across state lines and offer products that suit small businesses. Felkner pointed out that each state has different requirements for health care, and the different sets of standards eliminate cross-state competition.
“Shifting that responsibility to the government, how is that better?,” Felkner said. “Many people in the community if they are allowed to have individual power to purchase their own insurance, we know that money will not go to the business professionals. Once the power is in the hands of the consumer all issues of rationing would go out the window.”
Johnson asked the panelists to discuss the factors driving up health care costs, which has fixated the debate for health insurance reform. “We’re talking about insurance reform, not health care reform, but through this reform we will see care reform” Linehan said.
Bishop said that significant cost shifting is to blame, with many people turning out at meetings that are eligible for medicare and don’t want to see it tampered with.
“People are fearful of change,” added Felkner. “These people are not at forums because they want medicare to go away, but because they are afraid its going to be gutted. They are afraid the system will be diluted by putting 40 million uninsured Americans on the plan.”
What America offers is ingenuity and innovation in health care, said Linehan, “and that is expensive.”
“The power has been taken out of the consumer in health care,” said Felkner, who said the day of the second opinion is long gone. “The price of bread doesn’t go up by eight percent each year, and that’s because of competition which keeps the price down. A lot of congressmen think profits of insurance companies are driving up the costs, but total profits of both drug companies are not as high as opinion would have it. These two ‘boogeymen’ the pharmacy and the insurance companies, are both supportive of the Obama plans,” he said. “A few select companies are, as one person put it, ‘paying the cannibals to eat them last.’”
“We must first ask ourselves, what is expensive?” Linehan said. “Canada and Europe are our comparisons, but most of the innovation they rely on comes from the US. We pay the costs, and the price is shifted to us.”
“We will lose out competitive standing if we begin to ration, and become just like them,” said Bishop. “The question is, who will innovate it not us? The important part of the US’ standing in the world is the quality of life people enjoy because of American innovation.”
“There has been a shift in culture in just one generation,” said Felkner. “There is also a health care policy shift where the middle and wealthier classes are also reliant on the government, and the government has grown to encompass these people. When it ceases to be a commodity you lose the drive for innovation.”
Portions of the meeting will be broadcast later on the South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce “Chamber channel, which is accessible from the chamber website at www.skchamber.com.
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 )
|
|
Click to CompareCards.com online for info on credit cards that are cheapest for you. |
|
|
|
