Kleeb listens to health care concerns

By Don Walton, LINCOLN JOURNAL STAR

Scott Kleeb listened Wednesday to the complex challenges of a health care system increasingly under duress.

The Democratic Senate nominee sat down at lunch with seven Lincolnites who are engaged in health care policy to explore their views as he prepares his own legislative plan.

“You guys are on the front lines,” Kleeb said. “Your feet are much closer to the ground.”

What Kleeb heard during conversation over sandwiches, chips and cookies on the 4th floor of the Apothecary Building was a litany of growing problems yet to be resolved.

Increasing health care demands, growing numbers of people without health insurance, rising costs, huge problems in Medicare and Medicaid funding, all complicated by an economy in distress.

“We are unable to meet the demands out there,” said Steve Bray, executive director of the People’s Health Center.

Medical encounters rose from 18,000 in 2006 to 22,000 in 2007, with 53 percent of those patients uninsured, he said.

An estimated 30,000 Lincolnites do not have health insurance, Bray said.

Inadequate Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements are shutting off access to a growing number of Lincoln physicians, said Joan Anderson, executive director of the Lancaster County Medical Society.

“People are falling through the cracks,” said Beatty Brasch, executive director of the Center for People in Need.

“There’s an ongoing erosion of Medicaid in the state,” said Becky Gould, executive director of Nebraska Appleseed.

“A real retreat in terms of access to services.”

Lori Seibel, president of Community Health Endowment, said advocates have had to find “creative solutions to get around roadblocks” in a system that seems to be turning into “health care by negotiation.”

Gould said she believes health care reform should be “a blend of public-private, with subsidies kicking in at the right place.”

Brasch said she supports a universal health care system.

Participants generally agreed on the need for portability of workplace health insurance coverage and the urgency of concentrating on preventive health care.

Several proposed rewarding lower insurance premiums to those who don’t smoke and deal with issues of obesity.