Health care experts uncertain what reforms Congress may enact

Oct. 09--MANATEE COUNTY -- Those who administer or insure health care on the local level believe federal lawmakers will enact health care reform. Yet even they are uncertain what that reform may include and exclude.

On Monday, the League of Women Voters of Manatee County invited several speakers to address what League president Rosalie Shaffer called "one of the most important and perplexing issues for our country."

Kevin DiLallo, chief executive of the hospital group Manatee Memorial Health System; Victoria Kasdan, executive director of We Care Manatee; and Gene Stracener and Rick Bennett, spokesmen for insurer Florida Blue, delivered messages with a common underlying theme.

They all are unsure what Congress may eventually do and how it will impact the services they provide.

"The present law is flawed," Bennett, community educator for Florida Blue, said of the controversial Affordable Care Act passed during the Obama administration. He, however, would prefer Congress devise "a better version ... instead of repealing it and starting over."

Americans want a health care system that provides "affordability, access and quality," Bennett said.

Yet simultaneously achieving those goals becomes the challenge, he noted. For example, affordability could result in a loss of quality.

The difficulty in providing health care reform is that lawmakers cannot start with a clean slate, Bennett said. "We can't stop the system and start over." Patients continue to require care while legislators debate what they intend to do regarding changes to benefits and coverage in privately and publicly managed plans.

"Health care reform is coming," Kasdan said. "It's a matter of when and what it will look like."

Founded in 1999, We Care Manatee is a nonprofit for which, during its past fiscal year, physicians donated more than $1 million in services for patients ages 18 to 64 with no insurance and incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($24,120 for an individual, $49,200 for a family of four).

"What we have in Florida is a gap," Kasdan said. Many Floridians lack coverage because they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but earn too little to qualify for subdidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

DiLillo said what will especially impact the health care system is the aging baby boomer generation. Roughly 10,000 Americans each day turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. That "senior explosion" must be taken into account as it starts "draining the health care system," DiLillo said.

The differing health care reform bills in Washington, D.C., seem to have one aspect in common -- a guideline often used in debates, Kasdan said: "If you can't clearly communicate -- confuse."

"It's a political football right now," Bennett said.

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