The San Francisco Chronicle features an in-depth interview with Catholic Healthcare West President/CEO, Lloyd H. Dean. In the interview Dean discusses the potential of healthcare reform in light of the presidential election and current economic crisis, and other issues affecting the health industry and not-for-profit health systems.
According to the feature, Dean, 58, is not the most likely person to run a Catholic health organization. The first African American and non-Catholic chairman of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Dean was raised as a Baptist, was one of nine children and didn't see a doctor until high school. He was recently included in a list of the nation's top 25 minority health care executives by Modern Healthcare magazine.
A few salient excerpts from the interview:
Q: Given the state of the economy, is health care still at top of the list of domestic concerns, and what are the chances of reform?
A: There's no question that the current economic environment has probably trumped everything. Folks like ourselves, and all across this nation, are really focused on their own financial viability.
But I think a very, very close second is health care and health reform. There was a Gallup poll that came out last week that said, other than getting some stability in the current financial crisis, that health care is still the prevailing issue. It has even trumped some of the issues around Iraq and Afghanistan.
There will be some stabilization - I can't tell you how long it will take - of this fiscal crisis we're in, and health care will jump right back to the top of the agenda. The fact that there are 46 million people who do not have access to care and use the most inefficient way of receiving health care - through our ERs. That's not sustainable.
Q: If you had power to resolve the problem of the uninsured what would you do?
A: I would and will continue to advocate some kind of universal health care in this country. I think that health care is a right. I don't think that it's a privilege. It is a shame that a country of our means has 46 million individuals who do not have access or have no way of paying for their health care.
Many individuals I see and talk to - and even in my own family - have to choose whether they are going to spend money on medicine or spend money on food. Am I going to split my pill in half so that I can buy oil to heat my home through the whole winter?
I have advocated forming coalitions at any level - at the federal level like we do with the Catholic Health Association of the United States, here with the Healthy San Francisco program - I believe it is in the best interest of the country that everyone has access to a minimal level of health services.
I know what it's like to not have health care. I grew up in an environment where the first physician I ever saw was in the high school physical. My father was, we like to say, the surgeon and my mother was the nurse. I come from a family of nine kids. The only time I ever visited the doctor was to join my mother one time when one of my brothers was being born.
As provider of health care, we are compelled to be as efficient as possible and we have to be part of the solution. Health care in this country is way too expensive. If we don't stop this, we won't be able to afford to pay, and that 46 million will be 75 million, and wouldn't that be a shame?
Health is the most important factor in our lives because if we do not have a wealthy health, this will affects our living. Doctors and short-term installment loans are things American shouldn’t have to do without. In order to keep people healthy, we must have access to proper healthcare. For our wallets, particularly during emergencies, small consumer loans should be an option. Yet it is doctors who are feeling the sting now, if what the latest Physicians’ Foundation survey says is true. The Physicians’ Foundation “advances the work of practicing physicians and improves the quality of health care for all Americans.” They strive to promote the safety of patients and doctor education. The vast majority of doctors who responded to their survey – 78 percent – believe that there are already too few family physicians. Nearly half of those who responded are angry that government and HMO regulations have damaged their ability to care for their patients, and they are looking to quit their practices. As the population grows, the ratio of doctor to patient will likely be stretched to the breaking point. In much the same way, if government and banks manage to eliminate the consumer’s freedom to choose what kind of small-scale emergency financing best suits them – like installment loans – customers will be driven to less desirable alternatives. As studies like the one by Dartmouth College Assistant Economics Professor Jonathan Zinman indicate, consumers’ economic well-being has been impaired once payday installment loan services are capped and removed from their communities. Doctors and all consumers should contact their representatives and congressmen and demand a stop to overregulation. The choice for health and the choice for a loan should be in the hands of the customer.
Posted by: Lisa P | November 23, 2008 at 10:15 PM