About 26 people braved the rain and fog Tuesday evening to listen to information about health-care reform.
The forum, held at the Best Western Hospitality House, was sponsored by The Society of Emporians Exploring Key issues and featured State Sen. Jim Barnett as the speaker. Barnett shared his views and suggestions on health-care reform.
Barnett, who has practiced medicine for 25 years, said nothing is more important than having informed citizens.
“I have come here in part as a senator and a doctor,” Barnett told the group.
Barnett said 300,000 Kansans are without health insurance coverage and premiums continue to go up, causing more people to become uninsured because they cannot afford to pay the premiums.
Audience members were introduced to the Kansas Health Policy Authority, the new state agency charged with coordinating health-care reform in Kansas.
“We need everything under one umbrella,” Barnett said. “There should be an overall structure — the Kansas Health Policy Authority.”
Barnett said the desire was to move health care out of the hands of policymakers and into the hands of a board that can make recommendations to the Legislature. Education and health care are two of the major issues in the Legislature, with health care becoming No. 1 right now, Barnett added.
In the packets that were handed out, several charts and bits of information were included from the Kansas Health Institute. According to one of those handouts, 45 percent of people without health insurance were unable to see the doctor in the past year, compared to 8 percent of people with insurance who did not see a doctor.
Barnett said there were 46,000 uninsured children in Kansas today and 71 percent of those children are eligible for Medicaid or Healthwave. Large numbers of young adults also have no insurance.
Many uninsured people seek medical treatment in emergency rooms, Barnett said.
“People just seem to think it’s OK to go to the emergency room when they’re sick,” he said. “It’s not a good way. People know if they go to the ER, they’ll get treated. Who ends up paying for that? We do.”
Barnett said going to the emergency room is expensive.
“If you go to the emergency room and are uninsured, you’re going to get a bill that is top dollar,” he said.
Barnett talked about mandated health insurance.
“Shouldn’t we require people to have (health) insurance?” he said. “For all of you who drive a car, you have insurance. Should we mandate all people to have health insurance?”
Barnett also touched upon the idea of premium assistance.
“If your (employer) has insurance, we want to pick up the differences (in premiums),” he said.
Barnett said a family of four must have an annual income of $7,000 to $8,000 to qualify for Medicaid, an amount that families simply cannot live on.
Ownership of health coverage was another topic during the evening.
“What happens for most people, if you change jobs, you lose your insurance,” Barnett said. “Who owns your car insurance? You do. You have insurance on your home and when you change jobs, you don’t lose your house insurance.”
Barnett said some employers allow insurance premiums to be purchased with pre-tax dollars.
“Even with that, there are still families who can’t afford insurance,” he said. “The Health Care Connector would (solve) that.”
The connector, proposed by Barnett, would consolidate individual, group and governmental health insurance in Kansas to provide unified market for health insurance and encourage seamless coverage of Kansasns.
Barnett also suggested changes in insurance companies’ policies.
“If you’re sick, you’re not wanted,” he said. “Part of health-care reform should be open enrollment. They (insurance companies) want to write policies on how long you’re going to live and they’re good at that.”
One audience member brought up the issue of mandating employers to provide health care. She said if that was mandated, many small businesses would go under.
“The reality is this: it’s illegal,” Barnett said. “The state cannot tell businesses what to do, but there’s a personal responsibility we all have. But there’s only so much you can afford before you can close the doors.”
The topic of health-care savings accounts was brought up. These accounts are high-deductible plans and rates are usually cheap, Barnett explained.
“You invest it,” he said. “You earn interest like an IRA.”
Lougene Marsh, director of the Flint Hills Community Health Center, spoke during Barnett’s talk.
“My thought is there isn’t a silver bullet to solve this problem,” Marsh said. “It’s multifaceted. I think there are a lot of solutions being (looked at) out there.”
Barnett told the audience to stay on top of important issues and stay in touch with their legislators.
“I think having a personal relationship with legislators, we need to do that,” he said. “Collectively I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this room.”