Middle Georgians weigh in on health-care reform : Rodney Manley

When members of Congress return to Washington next month from their summer break, it's unlikely that they will have extinguished the firestorm that's been raging over proposed health-care reform.

Representatives and senators have been getting an earful at town hall meetings about President Obama's push for a government-run insurance program that would guarantee coverage for all Americans. And the public opinion voiced over the next few weeks could very well sway the vote one way or another.


The Telegraph polled a sampling of area residents ' from doctors to patients and working folks ' about their concerns, hopes and thoughts about health-care reform. Here's what they had to say:

NAME: Dr. Michael Greene AGE: 52 RESIDENCE: Macon OCCUPATION: Family medicine physician

Dr. Michael Greene was at the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago in June when President Obama outlined his plan for health-care reform. He's read most of the 1,000-page reform bill proposed by House Democrats.

Greene, a family doctor and past president of the Medical Association of Georgia, is not a fan of what he's heard or read.

'I'm not in favor of socialism, and this is going high-speed down the road to a single-payer system and to socialism.'

A single-payer system is one in which a single entity ' in this case the federal government ' would collect and pay all health-care fees and costs. Under proposals from House Democrats, the government would offer a public insurance program and determine costs and coverage of all private insurance.

Greene's biggest issue with the plans? 'From a physician's standpoint, the interference in the physician-patient relationship.'

The House bill would create a health benefits advisory committee that would recommend benefits standards and cost sharing. Under the bill, the 26-member committee is required to include just one physician or health-care professional.

'We're handing over a tremendous amount of power to an appointed branch of government,' Greene said. 'It creates a monstrous level of bureaucracy.'

Some people, including Greene, dispute estimates that 48 million Americans are uninsured. About 10 million of that number, he said, are legal alien residents who choose not to buy insurance. Many more are people who have access to Medicare or Medicaid and have not enrolled, he said.

'There are about 12 million to 18 million truly uninsured. I'm not sure we should upset a system taking care of 350 million to take care of 18 million.'

Greene agrees that there are 'numerous improvements that need to be made,' including an increase in primary care, the elimination of pre-existing-condition exclusions and a movement away from employer-based insurance.

Any legislation, however, needs to include insurance and tort reform, efficiency reform and more competition in the marketplace, he said, and patients should remain in charge of their health care.

The overseas models of socialized health care, he said, are not the solution. Despite its faults, health care in America's is 'head and shoulders' better, Greene said.

'There's nothing in that bill that expands the way care is given. This bill controls the cost of that care. ... If you want to wait 12 months to get an MRI, go to Britain. It's free, but it's not fast.'

NAME: Dr. Thekkepat G. Sekhar AGE: 45 RESIDENCE: Perry OCCUPATION: Obstetrics and gynecology physician

America may have the best health-care system in the world, but what good does it do, Dr. Thekkepat Sekhar asks, if few people can afford it?

'People who can't afford it don't get health care,' said Sekhar, chief of staff at Houston Medical Center. Or, they get health care and put themselves into debt, possibly risking bankruptcy, he said.

That's why Sekhar would like to see a health-care system in which everyone has some form of adequate coverage, whether it's through an employer, a private company or a government-run program.

Sekhar rebuts the idea that a private health-care system fosters competition and allows choice. Insurance companies all have the same basic pricing, he said. His practice, Physicians for Women P.C. in Warner Robins, faces the same high premiums and challenges as other small businesses, Sekhar said.

'We're slowly getting squeezed for what we keep paying.'

And when it comes to making choices about a patient's treatment, it's the insurance company that ultimately makes the call, he said. It's 'ludicrous' to pay so much in premiums and not have a choice, he said.

Sekhar said he would like to see more emphasis on primary care and prevention rather than having to 'put out fires.'

When an uninsured person comes to the hospital for emergency treatment, doctors cannot turn that person away. Rather, the cost is passed on to paying patients through a higher cost of service.

'That (debt) ultimately gets transferred somewhere. Nobody's doing it for free,' he said.

When it comes to the current health-care reform debate, Sekhar is concerned there is too much misinformation and demagogy. At the same time, there is not enough knowledge about the issues, he said.

People on both sides need to actually read the proposals, rather than listening to sound bites, Sekhar said. One of the biggest hurdles will be finding a way to fund the system, he said.

NAME: Dr. David Parish AGE: 60 RESIDENCE: Macon OCCUPATION: Professor, interim chairman of Mercer University School of Medicine's Internal Medicine Department

Dr. David Parish, a faculty member at Mercer University's School of Medicine for 26 years, has a problem with the proposed health-care reform: 'It doesn't go far enough.'

'Might it go as far as you can get in the United States today?' he asked. 'Maybe.'

President Obama has proposed reform that calls for government-sponsored public health insurance available to all Americans. Parish would prefer true 'universal access' in which health care is simply made available to all patients and all medical providers are paid equally.

'People know they're not being well-served by the system in our country and that there's got to be a better way to do this. Why should we be bankrupting people because of medical bills?'

Our current health care, he said, is 'pushing people into chronic states of ill health' by not covering treatments for conditions such as diabetes before they lead to more major health problems, such as stroke.

'It's like you pay to change out the old motor in that 18-wheeler that you would not change the oil in.'

Parish said the reform bill comes close enough to universal access to close big holes in coverage ' such as people getting written out of coverage for pre-existing conditions ' and bring relative transparency to insurance coverage.

'What is on the table is really insurance reform and, to an extent, it's insurance regulation. ... The intent of health-care reform is maintenance. The simplest way to do it is one system ' cover everybody.'

Universal access has worked in countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Canada, Parish said, and it can work here.

'You're not seeing drug companies going out of business in those countries. They're just not making the oh-my-God profits they're making in this country. ... The things that insurance companies get away with over here don't happen over there. The system won't allow it.'

'This is not a radical proposal to say that with a country as developed and sophisticated, we should have universal access. There should be a U.S.-designed system. It's got to be one that we design and one we can live with.'