Trumping healthcare’s bad hand

Some history lessons and suggestions to improve US healthcare without breaking the bank

By Scot Faulkner (Scot Faulkner was Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. House of Representatives)

As the White House and Republican leaders continue debates and negotiations on a new bill, the blamestorming continues over the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare. Congressional Republicans have only themselves to blame. Since returning to majority in the House in January 2011, Republicans have formally voted 54 times to address all or part of Obamacare. Six were votes on full appeal.

In 2015, H.R. 132 is typical of these efforts.  It simply stated: “such Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.”  Why didn’t Republicans vote on this a few weeks ago?

Republicans did not vote on simply going back in time, because they thought government should play a significant role in healthcare. It should not. Crippling regulations need to be changed and the private sector needs to be encouraged. Last month’s legislation did not clear the way for these solutions.

The Republicans’ problem is squandering six years with legislation designed more for fundraising and campaigning than governing. Instead, they could have viewed their repeal and replace efforts as prototyping or beta-testing a new product or APP. They could have tested ideas and built Republican consensus. Not doing this led to disaster. What to do next?

In 2013, I outlined a patient-centric versus politician-centric approach. Maybe now it will be followed. Those wanting an expanded governmental role in healthcare and those opposing it are fighting the wrong battle in the wrong way.

The debate over national healthcare policy has lasted over a century – intensifying during the Clinton Administration and since Obamacare. It has always been about coverage, liability, and finance, never about care protocols and patients. If making health affordable is everyone’s stated goal, then why not focus on the actual care, health, and wellness of Americans?

America remains the best place on Earth to have an acute illness or shock-trauma injury. Our nation’s emergency rooms and first responder protocols are unequaled. Princess Diana may have lived had her car accident happened in New York City instead of Paris. America’s diagnostic methods and equipment are unequaled. That’s why patients from all over the globe seek answers to complex symptoms by visiting the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Sloan Kettering and countless other world class facilities.

The other side of American healthcare is its failings in chronic care, expense, and a system that is controlled by the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies and insurance industry. This triad of entrenched interests has prevented the widespread use of substances and therapies deemed effective in most of the world.

Thankfully, an increasing number of healthcare professionals are embracing global best practices, virtual technology, and patient-centric methods. Some are even exploring homeopathic and nutritional treatments that are common place around the globe, but viewed as “nontraditional” in America. These innovations are improving the health of patients while driving down costs. This is the arena where policy-makers should check their partisanship at the door. Seeking ways to improve healthcare, not health financing, will ultimately make health affordable to us all.

I have personal experience with the convergence of these worlds. Since 2007, I have been the primary caregiver to several family members with serious chronic conditions. These conditions have been punctuated by emergency care and major surgeries. Making decisions and managing treatment across this spectrum has been a real education that has helped me identify four major areas of opportunity for health and healthcare improvement, while addressing the affordability of private and public health services.

First, not all ailments require doctors and prescription medications. Government and industry policies drive people away from cheaper and more effective natural remedies. Herbal remedies have been successfully used since the first humans. For example, apple cider vinegar has completely solved acid reflex. Cayenne pepper has improved heart function.

However, natural substances are not covered as a medical expense either by insurance or tax deductions. Instead, acid reflex sufferers must pay for over-the-counter treatments (which are also not covered by insurance or tax deductions), or must obtain expensive prescriptions after paying to see a doctor or specialist. Being a natural treatment, the vinegar regime also avoids side effects and drug interactions. Why not go “back to the future” and find ways to support these more affordable and effective treatments?

Second, nurse practitioners form one of the new front lines of care. The overwhelming majority of my family’s office visits are with a nurse practitioner interacting with the patient and lab technicians. Occasionally, a doctor will review the information and discuss treatment options with the patient. Supporting the evolution to nurse practitioners through education, professional certification, protocol modifications and pricing would reduce costs and expand health options for professionals and patients.

Third, community caregiving is another new frontline of achieving and sustaining wellness. In 2009-2011, I was part of the planning team for developing a community-based care system for the Atlanta area. We found a disturbing pattern – patients, especially Medicare/Medicaid patients, arrive in hospital emergency rooms when their chronic conditions (diabetes, congestive heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, eg) become acute. These patients are treated at the most expensive point of care: emergency room. Once they are released, many do not have the support (family, friends, neighbors) or the capacity (some form of dementia) to follow a treatment regime that would prevent the next emergency room visit. These revolving door patients drive-up costs and end-up in a cycle of deterioration.

Our solution was to develop a community-based healthcare network. Such networks are known as “Accountable Care Organizations” (ACOs). They break-out of traditional hospital and doctor office environments to forge partnerships with the community – churches, social workers, local government, neighbor associations, and nonprofits. A needy patient with chronic conditions is assessed holistically.

This includes risk factors (i.e. smoking, alcoholism, drugs) and environmental factors (family & home environment). A care plan is developed and assigned to a multi-faceted care team (comprising community resources) and a care manager. Doctors and nurses are part of the team. The majority of health actions take place among family and community – driven by electronic medical records, aided by remote sensors and virtual care, and guided by the managed care team.

The result of this holistic approach is improved care, sustainable health and reduced costs. It is the one way Medicare and Medicaid costs can be substantially reduced while enhancing quality of life. There are initiatives to promote this methodology within the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but it is occurring too slowly and is too isolated. ACOs are making a difference, but no major politician has embraced the concept and neither party has promoted them as a way to reduce Entitlement costs.

Fourth, families have always been a pivotal component in healthcare. Whether it is a parent staying home to care for sick children, or adult children caring for ailing parents, family caregiving is vital; but it is also emotionally and financially draining.

Having been the care manager, medical power of attorney, and patient advocate for both my parents and my wife, I know how much time is spent with ailing family members. Current IRS regulations provide for listing parents as dependents based only upon financial support.

However, there are no tax credits or deductions for those who have the medical power of attorney and devote countless hours to direct care or acting as the patient’s advocate for managing their care. Politicians at both the state and federal levels should provide relief for this indispensable and growing volunteer service sector. Supporting Family-based assistance will save billions in public assistance.

According to the National Alliance of Caregiving, 70 million Americans provide unpaid assistance and support to older people and adults with disabilities. Forty percent of these caregivers provide care for 2-5 years, while approximately 29% provide care for 5-10 years. Unpaid caregiving by family and friends has an estimated national economic value (in 2004) of $306 billion annually – exceeding combined costs for nursing home care ($103.2 billion) and home health care ($36.1 billion). This value is increasing as the population ages.

These four areas of opportunity will not address every health issue or entirely diffuse the fiscal bombs strapped to medical entitlements, but they are a good nonpartisan start. It is time for politicians to focus on the wellbeing of patients, not themselves.

Via email

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Conservatives Must Hate the Poor – Because They Want Less Gov’t

When you’re a conservative, you have to develop a thick skin. You get used to hearing how heartless you are. How devoid of compassion.

And why? Because you don’t automatically support every government program that purports to help poor people. Why, you conservatives must hate poor people!

For our liberal friends, life is simple. “Hey, here’s a social problem,” they’ll say, in essence. “Let’s throw some money at it. That will solve it.” If we disagree, they take it as proof we care more about money than about people.

There’s a certain irony at work here. Sure, money is a concern. After all, scarce resources are being taken, either from the taxpayers or borrowed from future generations. But it isn’t just – or even primarily – the money that bothers us. It's all the regulations, all the big government, that goes along with it.

Because when actual flesh-and-blood people are being considered, when we consider how big government affects human beings, we find many victims of its policies not among the rich, but among the poor.

The problem of big government crops up in many different ways. The rules, the regulations, the fine print – they all affect what you can buy, or how much it costs, or what you can do. They dictate whether you can run a lemonade stand, or sell roses on a street corner, or even just drive a car without having to go through some overly complicated governmental process.

A new Heritage Foundation report, “Big Government Policies that Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them,” outlines the phenomenon in detail. One of the charts shows exactly why big government amounts to misplaced compassion – the one that shows household spending as a percent of after-tax income.

It’s broken down by income quintiles, and guess what? Government data show incontrovertibly that it is the poor who pay the biggest percentage of their income for things such as housing, food, clothing, electricity and gasoline. So when regulations and other government policies jack up the cost of these items, the poor are the ones hit the hardest. Not those of us who are fortunate enough to have done better and moved up the income ladder.

When we’re dealing with big, intrusive government, we need to forget about good intentions. Instead, let’s focus on how it adversely impacts people at the lower end of the income spectrum.

We don’t need another program. What we need is for government to get out of the way. Stop intervening. Stop requiring people to do certain things, whether it is to attend cosmetology school to become hair-braiders, or to stop them in other ways from making their own economic decisions – which they, obviously, are in the best position to make.

It may seem hard for big-government advocates to realize, but I know how to spend my own money better than some faceless bureaucrat does. I believe that frustration on this point has done much to create the new economic era and the new political era in which we find ourselves today.

This isn’t a new concept. The welfare studies we were doing 20 years ago addressed the same kind of question. We wanted to know how to rethink the dozens of means-tested welfare programs that are out there in a way that encouraged economic opportunity for all Americans, no matter what their income.

We succeeded, and the great welfare reform of 1996 led to some real and significant changes. I hope that this latest study will bring some significant changes as well.

“Government is not the solution to our problem,” Ronald Reagan said. “Government is the problem.” The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can help all Americans – especially the poor.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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