KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — Four experts painted a grim picture of the current status of healthcare in the U.S.at a symposium in Kalamazoo Wednesday night, and suggested that most of what is being done to fix it will just make it worse
WMU-Cooley Professor Lisa Demoss, who once worked in the health insurance industry, says Insurance markets are anxious and uncertain because they have no idea what will happen next and new executive orders ending subsidies will create “significant market instability”.
It was widely reported just before the session that Avalere Health, a D.C.-based consultant is predicting that health insurance rates under Obamacare will increase 34% on average nationwide next year, and The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services is projecting a 27% hike in Michigan next year.
Bronson Vice President James Falahee says he tells healthcare employees to focus on their patients and to ignore what’s going on in Lansing and Washington.
He says if they provide quality care the rest will take care of itself, at least they hope.
Former Congressman Bart Stupak, one of the architects of Obamacare says they may be targeting that program but its healthcare that is getting hit. He says lawmakers who want to get rid of Obamacare are not trying to replace it with better policies, but simply taking actions that will play well with their voter base.
He says the one legacy they can’t take away is that the American people now feel they deserve health care and any plan that attempts to undermine that basic right will be unacceptable.
He says right now a single payer system like the one in Canada may be politically unacceptable in the U.S. now, but eventually he predicts it will be adopted because the current system just isn’t sustainable.
One of the more startling messages came from Tyler Gibbs, a professor of Medical Ethics in Kalamazoo. He says one study showed that nearly 63% of all healthcare providers they looked at were showing some symptoms of burnout because of the workload.
He says suicide rates are higher among healthcare workers and so are rates of depression. He says that’s another healthcare crisis that needs to be addressed.
The Symposium was held at the WMU Homer Stryker M.D. school of Medicine’s downtown campus and sponsored by the WMU Cooley Law School.
