2008 Woodie Awards
Health care summit held to raise awareness
Aly Davis: Staff Writer
Issue date: 9/25/08 Section: News
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A good turnout of around 100 professionals, community members and UNCW students and faculty made for a successful meeting on an important topic.
Last year about one third of the hospitals in North Carolina lost money due to "charity care," or treating those who cannot afford to pay their medical bills. Nationally, hospitals spent about $35 billion on uncompensated care and New Hanover Regional Hospital spent $100 million.
"There are now few services in health care that make money," said John Gizdic, Vice President of New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
In 2006-2007, more than 1.5 million non-elderly (18.9 percent) were uninsured in North Carolina. The Vice President of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, Mark Holmes, Ph.D. pointed out in his presentation that this is "approximately the population of the Charlotte metro area."
In New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, 19 percent of the non-elderly are uninsured.
"We have 14 to 20 new patients every week," said Jeanne Rose, a family nurse practitioner at the Tileston Outreach Health Clinic. "Eighty-five percent of our patients are working people."
The Tileston Outreach Health Clinic provides chronic and acute medical care to those whose income falls within federal poverty guidelines.
Of the 1.5 million uninsured, 52 percent work full time. Health care costs are continuing to rise at the fastest rate in history and there is a shortage of physicians. For a long time, eastern North Carolina lacked a major hospital and medical school, and there are still five counties that don't have dentists.
In many cases, those who are uninsured delay health care and their worsening condition leads to the end result of a higher hospital bill. "This results in higher insurance premiums," Gizdic said.
About 60 percent of services received by the typical uninsured person are uncompensated, and this puts a lot of burden on society through taxes and higher insurance premiums.
"This is not just an uninsured problem, but an underinsured problem as well," Gizdic said.
Employers are also feeling the burden in today's economy.
"Insurance is about 15 percent over what we pay the employee," Jeff Hilton from Southern Home builders said.
The number of businesses that offer health insurance are declining, especially in small companies. Twenty-six percent of employers have dropped or reduced insurance.
"This affects the entire community," Gizdic said. "It needs to get behind this."
Five priority recommendations of the NC IOM Task Force on Covering the Uninsured are as follows: safety net support (helping the uninsured and underinsured), lifestyle changes, healthy North Carolina (state subsidizes 30 percent of premium by offering reinsurance), Medicaid expansion and high risk pool.
Prevention is also a major part of beginning to solve health care access problems. The Journal of the American Medical Association states that less than four cents of every health dollar is spent on prevention and health education.
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