Hilarys Latest Health Care Failure

Author: Sara Hilbert

Time has passed since her health reform campaign in the nineties, but Hillary Rodham Clinton is still fighting for change. Hillary is trying to claim that her newest plan is not a new bureaucracy, but would build on the good parts of system while improving parts that are failing. (I wonder who’s writing the checks that might have changed those opinions from her first plan.) Either way, the results would look the same as herfirst proposal ten years ago with S.3674, “The 21st Century Wellness Trust Act.”

The Looming Crisis

Predictions in the introduction of the bill say that by 2025 nearly half of the United States population will suffer from at least one chronic disease. Currently, 70 percent of deaths and health costs in the United States are attributable to chronic diseases. These are preventable diseases! The United States has the highest rate of preventable deaths among 19 industrialized nations and lags behind 28 other nations in life expectancy. Unarguably, our health care system is dysfunctional.

This bill claims that, “If effective risk reduction were implemented and sustained by 2015, the death rate due to cancer could drop by 29 percent. Improved blood sugar control for people with diabetes could reduce the risk for eye disease, kidney disease, and nerve disease by 40 percent. Similarly, blood pressure control could reduce the risk for heart disease and stroke by 33 to 50 percent.” It also deems the workforce to deliver prevention as insufficient. In addition, the supply of health care providers trained to emphasize prevention is shrinking. Between 1997 and 2005, the number of medical school graduates entering family practice residencies dropped by 50 percent. There is an acute shortage of community health workers. Between 25 and 50 percent of the existing Federal, State, and local public health work force is eligible for retirement in the next 5 years. As of 2008, more than 75 percent of the existing public health workforce has no formal public health or prevention training. There is no national, uniform credentialing system for public health or prevention workers that would ensure that these workers are trained in the basics of preventive care.

Hilary’s Proposal

This is a loud call for preventative services that reduce these unnecessary costs and improve the quality of life and health of Americans. In quick reaction to these harms, Ms Clinton would create a “trust fund board” composed of seven president appointed members to oversee improvement and change. First, this board would spend their first year examining and researching the system and then attempt to find the best plan to develop. After the first year, these select seven would report on broadening prevention in the workplace, “payment methodologies,” connecting incentives with goals to increase community organization involvement with prevention, and present funding spent on prevention.

After which they will then organize “delivery systems” to provide finances for prevention priorities and implement pilot programs. This group would become the central for prevention information. If by this time, there were no nationwide electronic medical record systems already in place, this bill would create an electronic prevention record. Most importantly, plans would oversee the additional training and credentialing prevention of health workers.

Funding would come no later than January 2011 from the “Wellness Trust Fund”, increasing by a percentage for each subsequent year, as seen fit by the board of trustees.

After assuring prevention priorities are in place this bill would approve “eligible individuals the prevention services to the uninsured.” It seeks coordination with Medicare and other private insurers, but again only to make sure that they receive funds for the health workers that are providing the prevention-oriented health care option.

Why Hilary Would Find Failure 

At reviewing the bill’s provisions, it is clear that Hilary’s elite group of seven would not have the capacity to make decisions that bring about the best outcome for all. Furthermore, with little support and authority, they do not have the ability to carry out all the necessary improvements. It just feels like an organized list of boxes to check for our overwhelmed health professionals. Reform will not take place when you tack on a longer working week for our nation’s overworked nursing staff. It will not happen if you ask our doctors to require more training and qualifications. We have yet to admit a larger problem: the intense control of insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and the American Medical Association. We have certified health care employees. What we do not have is a system that allows patients complete access to these opportunities. True, moving the focus onto preventive care will be the best solution. However, the mindset associated with this plan has a very limited picture of the system as a whole and still allows these problematic groups to stand in the way of a greatly needed solution.