Former CU president Hank Brown returned to campus Monday to discuss health care reforms. (Courtesy of colorado.edu)
With so much uncertainty and debate clouding the issue of health care reform, former CU President Hank Brown shed some light on the topic during his visit to CU.
His Monday evening visit in Chem142 was hosted by the Student Association for Pre-Health Professionals. During his talk, Brown covered several topics in the field of health care ranging from problems in the 50s to current bills being passed by the Senate.
During his speech, Brown said health care reform would help protect physicians from lawsuits.
“These days if a physician wants to protect himself from a lawsuit he needs to document absolutely everything,” Brown said. “Almost everyone acknowledges that if you had reforms in health care it would be better. Don’t get me wrong—you can still sue for malpractice, but there should be a limitation on punitive damages. Anytime there’s a question of punitive malpractice, hospitals do their own tests immediately and often settle quickly as a result.”
Brown is a former U.S. senator and representative. He was also the president of CU from 2006 to 2008.
Brown said that when he was in the state legislature, he helped fight malpractice suits by carrying several bills. He illustrated problems with the health care system by describing the case of a pediatrician who was sued 30 years after having treated a patient. The patient was suing the pediatrician for a deformity that was sustained. In this example, Brown said as a physician, one could not disprove much in a lawsuit 30 years later. He said that he helped change that by amending a bill to put a time limit on malpractice suits extending no longer than the patient’s 21st birthday. Brown said after that amendment was implemented, insurance rates for pediatricians in Colorado were cut in half.
Justin Schnittker, a recent 22-year-old graduate who majored in integrative physiology, said the event was very interesting and the topic produced a lot of good feedback from the audience.
“Any discussion on this topic is good,” Schnittker said. “Since [Brown] was involved in politics it was especially good to hear from him and that generated a lot of good questions afterwards. He went over fundamental problems relating to politics you wouldn’t hear about elsewhere so it was informative to hear his personal views.”
A big topic in the presentation was the comparison of the American and European health care systems.
Advocates of the European system say Europe doesn’t have paperwork issues, which are big in the U.S., Brown said. He continued by describing the pros and cons of the European system. Brown said one advantage is the single-payer system that collects all medical fees and then pays for all services through a single government source. As Brown listed off consequences, such as loss of incentive for the physician to work and loss of personal contact with him as a result, much of the room nodded their heads in agreement.
This is not the first time the U.S. government has interfered with health care, Brown said.
“After World War II the federal government got really involved with health care. They passed the Hill-Burton Act which was meant to help build new hospitals, equipment, additions, etc.,” Brown said. “The government provided 90 percent of the funds which was a great incentive for hospital administrators; in the 50s there was a huge increase in medical facilities, but soon after things changed.”
One overlooked fault to the plan, Brown said, was that eventually there were too many hospitals and they would lose money. Hospitals with 100 percent occupancy would still have the same cost level as a hospital with 50 percent (under-capacity) occupancy—lights, heating, salaries, etc.
Brown detailed the resolution, and said a government agency was created to inspect hospitals that requested additions or equipment. The agency had a board that decided on whether to grant the hospitals’ requests or not.
Addressing more current events, Brown said the nation’s debt plays a significant role in health care reform.
“One of the biggest problems with health care is that we as a country are $56 trillion to $60 trillion in debt,” Brown said. “For every man, woman and child you have a deficit of $200,000 each. That’s, on average, $800,000 a household; after paying off mortgage the average household is worth substantially less than that. People see a health care reform as a way of getting everyone under a single-payer system to get rid of the debt.”
Many students said they were unaware of why our health care costs more money than other countries’. Brown touched upon that issue, saying that the U.S. has many specialists in every field, while other countries don’t. U.S. residents have access to physicians and equipment relatively easily while people in Europe might have to wait up to six months for the same treatment.
Brown said the new bill is controversial because of the effect it will have on the hours doctors work and the wages staff are paid.
“To meet the deficit you take our system and turn it in to the European system,” Brown said. “Basically, the new bill plans on cutting 50 percent of a physician’s compensation over the next decade. To compensate, doctors can work longer hours, more days, cut their staff’s wages, or whatever comes to mind. That’s what all the fuss is about.”
Medicaid is a federal program that is run differently by each state, according to the American Dental Association Web site. It covers most common treatments for people with disabilities, those who receive low incomes and the impoverished elderly. Medicare is available mostly to adults 65 and older, as well as people with disabilities.
As the largest health insurance program in the country, Medicare essentially pays for hospital visits and the like while the patient pays for things deemed not medically necessary, like physical therapy, according to the Web site.
When asked why it was bad for the government to run private health care companies out of business, Brown said it is the lack of economic freedom in that system that is problematic.
“Socialism is a disaster, and let me tell you why,” Brown said. “When the Berlin Wall came down people thought the West side had three times more capita than the East. Turns out they were wrong—the West had 10 times more per capita income. If you look at present-day North and South Korea, once again it’s 10 to one with the freer people producing more. Economic freedom—like in West Germany and South Korea—produces a great advantage because it motivates people.”
David Hoch, a 25-year-old senior integrative physiology major and president of SAPP, said the night was successful in the sense that students came with questions and left with answers.
“I think the event went really well,” Hoch said. “It’s good to get a high profile speaker to address these important topics, although I would’ve liked him to direct the speech more so to the health care profession. This event was more to get the concepts and controversies of health care out in to the open and I’m glad to see all the student input we had.”
Brown ended his presentation on a lighter note, wishing all of the pre-medical students luck in their endeavors and telling them not to worry too much about medical school.
“I hope you won’t let my gloomy outlook on this dissuade you from the health care profession,” Brown said. “Anyone in the profession has a sense of how important it is to help people and that is something invaluable. Physicians could make their salaries or more in other careers but they choose to help people—no one gets into this profession for the money and that’s why I know our future medical students will prosper.”
The previously mentioned American Dental Association Web site can be accessed here.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Adrian Kun at Adrian.kun@colorado.edu.
