.
Press
Conference Kicks Off "Cover the Uninsured
Week'
by
Judah Ken Freed
Colorado
leaders join in national effort to
influence debate on 41 million without
health insurance.
.
Covering
the 41 million medically uninsured people
in the nation will take creative
innovation and determined bipartisan
political will.
That's the unanimous
conclusion last Monday from speakers at a
press conference in Denver at the Downtown
Marriott to mark the first day of "Cover
the Uninsured Week," March 10-16.
The effort aims to
shift the political debate and momentum
away from dismantling public health care
programs and instead reinvigorate calls
for the United States to join other
industrials nations in ensuring the health
care coverage of all Americans.
Spearheaded
statewide by the Colorado Coalition for
the Medically Underserved, the public
policy development project is being funded
nationally by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation,
The California Endowment, plus 15 national
health and consumer organizations. Close
to 45 diverse Colorado municipal, county,
medical, professional, and charitable
organizations are partnering with the
national effort.
The long-planned
national public education and involvement
campaign, because of it's "lucky" timing
as the world holds its breath for possible
war, the press conference drew saturation
media attention. Reporters from almost
every major print and electronic press in
town filled the seats in the hotel's
Matchless Room, named for the historic
Matchless Mine.
The press conference
is SRO. Those by the door crane their neck
to see all the speakers behind the
microphone. They stand in the Matchless
service alcove, lit by bounce by the TV
crews before the event could start.
In the back of the
room stood a phalanx of photographers with
big lenses and flashing strobes. Beside
them stood a bank of tripod video cameras
from the news outlets. A videographer
holding high-end consumer video camera
with a good lens kept poking his eye
everywhere from any angle. He explained
later that he was there shooting video for
the Colorado coalition.
The press conference
began at 12:15. Reporters arriving at noon
could enjoy a healthy "wrap" sandwiches
and hotel beverages.
Speaking first was
Colorado Congresswoman Diana Degette,
D-CD1. She was impressed by bipartisan
support for the initiative. "This is a
good chance to move beyond politics and
put our money where our mouth
is."
Degette opposed
legislative steps last week to deny
Medicaid services to legal foreign
immigrants in Colorado.
After the press
conference, before dashing for a flight
back to Washington, she gave the example
of people in her district, "who fled
political neglect or repression in the
former Soviet Union," who now face kindred
hardships here in the land of the free.
Degette appreciate
the desire of Republican lawmakers to
solve the state and national budget
crisis, given so much going to tax cuts,
homeland security and war. "But the move
will end of up costing the government
more," she said, by forcing former
Medicaid recipients into hospital
emergency rooms for their care.
She spoke about
young single and married parents cut off
from health care for their children or
themselves, "who use the emergency room as
the family doctor."
She promised, "We'll
solve problems with bipartisan
cooperation, she said. She cited Denver
Health as an example of Disproportionate
Share Hospitals. Denver Health was
identified a DSH facility because it
provides a disproportionate share of its
charges to the uninsured and
under-insured.
Congressman Bob
Beauprez, R-CD7, praised the broad-based
coalition addressing the problem of
uninsured citizens. He affirmed the need
for an effort. "Those of us who create
good ideas," he said, "need to join forces
with those of us who have the opportunity
to vote for good ideas."
When his own Blue
Cross Blue Shield insurance premium from
Anthem went up 72 percent last year, he
said, "I had to swallow hard and accept
it, but a lot of other people cannot
afford such increases."
Beauprez does not
support single-payer national health care.
He spoke at the press conference about
individual tax credits and personal
medical saving account.
Critics of this
approach generally ask about covering
those who cannot afford to pay any medical
costs at all after food and shelter, if
they even have a home. Beauprez answered
the question before it was
asked.
For his plan to
cover everyone, he said, "We need to
define what benefits are necessary, then
define what will be the individual
contribution."
The children without
any coverage represent "one of our
challenges in Congress right now. The
issue of children is becoming one of our
funding priorities."
Next up to the
microphone was Colorado Medical Society
president -elect Dr. Chris Unrein, an
associate professor of clinical medicine
at the University of Colorado Health
Science Center. He said that covering the
uninsured matches the highest ideals of
the Colorado Medical Society.
"Colorado doctors
see the misery of the uninsured in terms
of both human suffering and economics, Dr.
Unrein said. "Decreased health means a
decreased ability to provide for one's
family, and that harms all of society."
Without taking
sides, he said, "We need to raise public
awareness about the question of whether
quality health care is a right or a
privilege."
Caz Mathews stepped
forward to speak in her British accent as
the chief operating officer of Anthem Blue
Cross Blue Shield, the largest health
insurer in Colorado.
"Affordability and
access are the issues we have to deal with
every day," she said. "Right now we're
seeing a lot of inappropriate cost
shifting for the use of medical services,
and that raises health care costs for
everyone."
She said help for
the uninsured and under-insured needs to
come from all quarters of the society
&endash; government, business leaders, the
medical establishment, community
organizations and, and
consumers.
"The effort this
week helps focus public attention on the
problem," she said, "and I'm moved to see
so much of the leadership in Colorado
coming together here today," but the real
question is whether leaders can work
together tomorrow to develop long-term
solutions.
Mathews then
presented Anthem's third annual "Hero in
Health" community service award to the CEO
of the Inner City Health Center, Kraig
Burleson. Accepting the check for $10,000,
Burleson thanked Anthem for the
contribution to the nonprofit project,
which assisted 18,000 people last year who
lack health insurance.
Burleson said the
population served by the Inner City Health
Center encompass one-third from the Five
Point neighborhood, one-third from across
metro Denver, and one-third from across
Colorado.
"The health care
crisis in Colorado and America is huge,"
he said, "and it's going to take all of us
to address the problem. Too many people
fall through the cracks, and those cracks
are turning into crevices." With the
economy faltering, "now is the critical
time to act to meet the growing
demand."
The final speaker
was Dr. Patricia Gabow, chief executive
office and medical director of Denver
Health, a prolific author, and leader of
the Community Voices project, which is
using $5 million from the Kellogg
Foundation and Colorado Trust to focus on
improving health care for the under-served
populations of metro Denver.
With a hoarse voice,
Gabow said Denver Health served 160,000
people last year alone, the most in its
142 years since its founding as Denver
General Hospital. Denver Health is the
largest single Medicaid services provider
in Colorado.
Gabow capped the
press conference by reading aloud the
"Cover the Uninsured Week" proclamation
from Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. When
she was done, the room would clear out
fast as everyone moved down one level in
the hotel for the town meeting on covering
the uninsured.
The "whereas"
statements Mayor's proclamation began with
the 41 million uninsured Americans. Eight
out of ten of them are in working families
earning too much income for public
assistance programs. They "live sicker and
die younger" from the lack of needed
health care. And because of "a slow
economy," because higher unemployment and
rising health costs, "more Americans are
becoming uninsured in our community" every
day.
"All of us suffer
when any one of us is not able to achieve
health and well being," Gabow said.
Because society is now interdependent and
we see how all the elements are
integrated, she said, "we need an
integrated public health sector in
America. We need to address this as a
nation, and to get there, we need reasoned
public discussion."
_______________________________
The
Dish on DSH
Congress
is now debating how much money will be
allocated to support community hospitals
that provide a disproportionate share of
their medical services to the uninsured
and under-insured. Federal government in
this way subsidizes free or low-cost
services to those least able to pay.
Federal funds for
Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) are
allocated by a formula set through
Congressional appropriations. The
allocation then is administered the U.S.
Department Health and Human Services
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services.
DSH funds funnel to
DSH hospitals through various state
agencies. Within Colorado, the State
Department of Health Care Policy and
Finance distributed the funds to hospitals
like Denver Health.
DSH funds are
dropping drastically.
The 1997 Balanced
Budget Act under President Clinton
established declining limits over time on
designated federal appropriations. The Act
specified 2003-04 as the fiscal year for
the funds to fall sharply on targeted
programs. In health care circles, this
dropoff is called the "DSH
Cliff."
According to a
Denver Health spokesperson citing a
federal report, Colorado received the
following DSH funds.
- FY 1997-98 $93.0
million
- FY 1998-99 $85.0
million
- FY 1999-00 $70.0
million
- FY 2000-01 $81.8
million
- FY 2001-02 $83.9
million
- FY 2002-03 $75.1
million
Congress froze DSH
funding levels in 2000, but added 1.5
percent for inflation, thus the rise.
Congress is now debating the formula for
FY 2003-04. Will funding the uninsured
rise or fall or remain the
same?
Orginally
written for The Colorado
Statesman.
March 2003
(c) 2002-03 by Judah Ken Freed
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