Live Blog: Healthcare Conference: Public Policy Institute at JU

[TheCat]

Our current form of universal health care is inefficient and is a hidden tax of 1k per family.

[Lunican]

Hospitals lose money on every medicaid patient they see.

Before we put the state at risk with the expansion of medicaid we should be looking at other alternatives. And, if you think that expanding medicaid will solve our healthcare program it won't.

How should we do this?

State driven with a focus on driving cost down. We shouldn't discriminate against the poor.

The long term answer to this problem is investing in education...which leads to better jobs.

Some background on Weatherford.

By rejecting the Medicaid expansion, Florida is estimated to be giving up $51 billion over 10 years to cover low-income residents. Under the law, the federal government would pay for 100 percent of the costs for the first three years of the program and then 90 percent thereafter.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/florida-house-speaker-medicaid-expansion-dead-88945.html#ixzz2kYZwsXN5

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) continues to slam Medicaid even though it reportedly paid a "mountain" of his own family's medical bills.

Wednesday, at an event at Suncoast Tiger Bay, a non-partisan political club, Weatherford said "Medicaid has been proven to be one of the worst forms of insurance you can get in America,"according to the Tampa Bay Times. "Nobody in here wants to be on Medicaid."

Yet back in March, Weatherford was forced to admit that it was a Medicaid-backed program he had praised for paying $100,000 of his own family's medical bills when his brother passed away from cancer. His staff originally claimed a hospital charity had helped the Weatherfords with their hospital bills.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/will-weatherford-medicaid_n_3906937.html

[TheCat]

What do you about it? First you have to ask the right question to get the right answer?

The wrong question is "should we expand medicaid?"

The right question is what is the best solution to healthcare?

As a business person, we start problem solving with an inventory of assets. Florida has incredible assets. Florida has a strong fiscal posture right now. We have a large population and we can apply scale to almost anything.

[TheCat]

What we need is not an expansion of an already existing program. We need nothing less than a complete reinvention. First, we need broad coverage. Second, we need market driven solutions. I have practically unlimited faith in the power and creativity of a free market. [point to Florida Blue's approach as an example]. Third, very important, we have to get away from a fee for service model to an outcomes driven model. Fourth, we need to...[missed but something to the effect that we need to use the 51 billion from the feds to reinvent the system. ]

Said earlier:

"These debates about whether you are poor or really really poor bother me greatly."


Halverson does not believe the white house is being rigid.


In 20 years we will writing books about this stage in our history. We should not be witnesses to history but authors. We have the capacity to think on this. We have the capacity to act on this. It's easy to make fun of the Affordable Care Act but it has to come with alternate solutions. We have a moral imperative to fix this issue. I suggest that we start today to fix this problem. I believe we have a federal government that is attentive to it. My exhortation is to get on the field and engage robustly. The one thing the health care act did [whether you like it or not] was disrupt the system...let's take advantage of it.

Wow

[Ben Warner]

Thanks for taking notes. I agree that Steve Halverson's wrap-up comments were particularly powerful -- this is a time of disruption and an opportunity for action. Mia Jones then made a request -- if this is a time for action, and the window of opportunity is short, what should we take to the legislature right now to be able to invest the $51 billion over 10 years to make substantive changes to the system that will answer the real question of improving health access and outcomes for the 3.9 million uninsured in Florida? Her question  -- and Halverson's charge -- deserve a thoughtful response. It's not enough to mock a flawed law, because in doing so you're just defending a broken status quo. What are the changes we're willing to make at this moment of change?

I know I'll be thinking deeply about the question tonight ...