By Pamela D. The Care Navigator, CSA, MS, BS/BA, CG

I admit I'm spoiled by having access to good health care. Being self employed, I've paid the entire premium for my own medical insurance for years. What my medical insurance doesn't approve, alternative treatment such as visits to a naturopath, I fund myself. Any mention of the naturopath makes my regular physician's blood boil so I've stopped expressing my excitement about the benefits of naturopathic care. I am fortunate and wish to remain as so. My insurance premiums have increased this year by $15 per month just to pay for Cover Colorado. I'm not complaining.

But I am concerned about what the current administration will do to health care. I agree that everyone should have access to health care and to health insurance; however there is a gaping chasm between access and quality of care. And when the administration is questioned the response is always evasive. No one in the current administration is talking about how a doctor appointment will be different in the future or how access to medical care and treatment is going to change. In my opinion the goal is to push through change for the sake of change because remember, voters elected a man who promised change and we're going to get it.

I suspect universal health care means that basic care will be provided but access to additional or special services will be limited by a gatekeeper. Look at the Canadian system of health care. Want to go to the doctor? Wait six months; maybe what you have will either result in your demise or you'll just give up trying to get to the doctor. This is an excellent cost savings measure. Need to go to a nursing home for rehab, there is one available but it is 2 hours away from where you live. Will you get care? Absolutely but it may not be timely or convenient or offer the choices you like. Need cancer screening? Better hope you don't have cancer because the wait may be just too long.

The administration is looking at penalizing hospitals who have patients that return to the hospital after release. Tell me how a hospital can control whether or not a discharging patient will comply with physician recommendations, take medications, eat and drink properly, exercise and do everything else that is recommended. This penalty should be placed on the individual. Wouldn't that be a way to reduce healthcare expenses? Not complying with the recommendations of your physician? Then you represent a cost to the system, thus you will not receive cardiac by-pass surgery or a hip replacement because you didn't take care of your health and the return based on the financial cost of treatment is not sufficient to warrant your treatment.

We need to be focusing on prevention and increased personal responsibility. Let's give incentives for being healthy versus penalizing everyone for the sins of many. Admittedly this is a significant mind-shift, however I believe it's the only way to create long term sustainable change versus a quick fix that may place everyone's health at risk.

Copyright 2011 Pamela D. Wilson, All Rights Reserved.

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