Health care executives sound off on reform efforts

The national debate on health care came to Rocky Mount during a forum on reform Tuesday at the Business Expo. Local officials took on whether some of the current proposals being shaped in Congress to create universal health care coverage would hurt small business owners and hospitals.

Four health care executives were asked questions in front of a crowd of more than 200 at a luncheon Tuesday associated with the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce’s 21st annual trade show.

Chamber officials and audience members posed the questions to the executives in a tent on the grounds at Nash Community College.

Larry Chewning, chief executive officer of Nash Health Care that runs Nash General Hospital, said tort reform needs to pass for health care reform to work.

“I think anything that is proposed has to get real serious about tort reform and the practice of defensive medicine,” he said.

Chewning said physicians at Nash Health Care make decisions daily about the best care for the patient and what care will help a defense in court in the event of a lawsuit.

He also told the crowd that more government involvement in a universal health care program is the wrong way to address the issue.

“I think that the private sector, if allowed to do so, will produce much better solutions than Medicare for everybody or Medicaid for everybody,” he said.

But Dr. Nicholas Patrone, president and chief medical officer of Boice-Willis Clinic, said government involvement beats the alternative of allowing insurance companies and pharmaceutical industries to run a new health care program. Those industries’ motive seems to be focused on profit instead of patients, Patrone said.

A government-run program might be the lesser of three evils, he said.

“I say that not liking Medicare and Medicaid and all the regs and hoops you have to jump through,” he said. “But the greed in those two (insurance and pharmaceutical) industries is mind boggling.”

Patrone said under the current reform proposals there will be even more rationing of health care.

“What most of you don’t know is we have rationing right now. The vast majority of people in this room don’t experience the rationing,” he said.

Patrone said the rationing takes into account different factors, including a patient’s insurance and behavior.

“The rationing is only going to get worse under any of these plans,” he said.

Patrone also pointed out that the problem is going to get worse by a shortage of doctors.

“In 15 years, we will be short 225,000 physicians in this country,” he said. “The medical schools have not been able to expand. East Carolina University is trying as best it can to expand, but they are running up against financial problems. There will be a rationing because there won’t be enough doctors.”

Before the panel discussion, Don Dalton, vice president of public relations for the N.C. Hospital Association, detailed health care legislation being debated in Congress.

Dalton said there is a group of 21 Democrats who are concerned about how the current health care reform proposals will affect small businesses.

“They are against the current health care proposal because they think it will be bad for small business,” he said. “When you look at the other numbers, it means that business people need to be encouraged to be more politically active.”

Dalton also said hospitals’ finances could be hurt by current public health care proposals that potentially could siphon away Medicare dollars.

“What we see is a total lack of effort to do the things we know can control costs. We know that about 30 percent of what is spent on health care is unnecessary, much of it through defensive medicine,” he said.

Dalton said health care reform legislation must pass this year. Without it, physicians are facing a 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement beginning on Jan. 1.

“Access for Medicare patients will decline if that goes into effect,” Dalton said. “That was put in legislation a number of years ago, and Congress has put it off, and put it off.”