OPINION: New model needed for health insurance

Jun. 16--Health care reform is the most pressing issue in the United States. Fixing health care is critical.

We rank last among 37 industrialized countries in quality, life expectancy is the U.S. is starting to decline, medical errors account for 10 percent of all deaths in the U.S. and hospital errors alone account for 251,000 deaths annually. Consumers and their physician/providers have become pawns in modern health care that has been commandeered by greed and profit.

I have committed over four decades of my professional life to building a model to fix health care. It only can be fixed where it happens -- between consumers and providers at the local level.

A sobering thought. A Rand study in 2006 concluded: "The bottom line: All adults in the United States are at risk for receiving poor health care, no matter where they live; why, where, and from whom they seek care; or what their race, gender, or financial status is." Having "good insurance" gets you the same health care as the homeless. We are all in the same boat.

Health insurance is not health care. We need a system that fixes health care and makes the health of our community optimal, safe and affordable.

Health insurance is an economic catastrophe engulfing our community, as it is every community in the U.S. Our community cannot adequately fund our teachers, our schools, law enforcement, infrastructure needs and the budget shortfall erodes our community in innumerable other ways. Pueblo County health insurance costs are unsustainable and are increasing by about $50 million every year.

Nothing in our society will benefit American workers more than fixing health care and making it affordable. Our children are currently harnessed at birth to pay a half million dollars for health care during their working years and we, urgently, as their only advocates, need to rescue them.

Fixing health care can be that financial engine that rescues our community. Saving, just by eliminating the waste, will amount to $3,000 per year for every person in Pueblo County and savings for the community could amount to $300 million or more per year. This will take us from the poorest to the richest metropolitan community in Colorado.

How? The process, by adopting the new health care model, can be anchored by our tax-supported, governmental entities; --city, county, school districts, etc. By self-insuring, these dollars can stay in the community and be owned and controlled locally. This will automatically democratize health care for our public entity employees, give them control of their own health care, provide them with complete accountability and allow them to partner with their health care providers to shape health care locally to ensure access, quality, safety and affordability. The savings and benefits will emanate to our governmental entities, their employees, taxpayers and our community.

A small fraction of the tax dollars set aside for the Pueblo Economic Development Corp. can be leveraged to create the administrative infrastructure needed to support the new self-insurance paradigm. By leveraging these monies to fix health care locally, an immediate return will be realized by everyone in Pueblo County. It will certainly make Pueblo County more attractive to companies/employers considering locating to our community and it will benefit all existing employers.

Not only can fixing health care be an economic boom for our community, but simultaneously it will optimize the health of our local population and make care safe.

Our public officials must be compelled to vet the proposed solution, as failing to investigate this potential community-saving solution would be irresponsible. It is easy to continue to buy health insurance as they have always done but, connecting the dots, this is no longer an affordable option. More of the same will bankrupt our community and the workers who are saddled with paying the bills. We are being asked to approve a $300 million bond for Pueblo City Schools (D60) while allowing the health care industry to extract $1 billion per year from us and growing this financial burden by $50 million every year. D60 teachers and staff -- through their terrible, tax-supported, health insurance benefit -- have paid for a new, unnecessary Kaiser Clinic rather than our children's schools.

As my home, I want to bring a health care solution to Pueblo. The solution does not exist anywhere else in the U.S.

Richard Rivera is chief executive manager and founder of HealthTrac, LLC.

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