Health Care
Health-care costs dig deeply into every Mainer’s pocket and affects the cost of our products and the insurance premiums we pay. High insurance premiums and burdensome health-care costs keep many small businesses from expanding employment in Maine. People deserve to have good quality health care and they shouldn’t have to go broke to get it.
Reward Quality Instead of Volume. Part of Maine’s health-care problem is that the payment systems reward doctors and hospitals for volume (number of procedures done/patients seen) and create incentives to invest in expensive technology. Instead they should be rewarding quality, supporting the doctor-patient relationship and ensuring that there are opportunities to compare health-care costs before enormous bills arrive in the mail.
Let People See What’s Happening. Health-care report cards that identify average service costs, patient safety experience and the successful implementation of best practice indicators should be available in terms we all can understand. Legislators should work with both providers and consumers by bringing them together to establish a state health plan that makes the system improve with our economy and our health.
Encourage Health. We need to find ways to encourage healthier lifestyles and choices and to help all Mainers reach their fitness and health potential. We have a system that provides sick-care instead of health-care. We need to create healthy communities through effective planning and design.
- Lower the cost of prescription drugs through programs such as the one in Franklin County. Spread the availability of Prescription Assistance Programs so that every community has reasonable access.
- Insurance companies and the government pay health-care providers based upon how many services they provide. We should reward quality first and foremost. Medicare has an evaluation and incentive system and, as a state, we should move in that direction.
- The state should work to promote patient-physician models. The concept of a “medical home” should be available to every citizen. Everyone should have a primary care physician (a medical home) and have their care coordinated by someone they know.
- Service costs, patient safety experience and best practice implementation should be reported in an understandable report card.
- We need to invest in electronic health information technology systems, such as the one at Maine Coast Memorial Hospital. These systems reduce the cost of duplication of effort, eliminate wasteful paper records, make health information rapidly transportable where it’s needed and encourages best practice care every time.
- One of the best ways to reduce costs is increase competition among insurers and providers. Consolidation seems like a nice idea but, in truth, it creates monopolies. According to Barack Obama, health-care mergers have increased insurance premiums by more than 87%.
- With two amazing, nationally-recognized research facilities in Hancock County, we need to support biomedical collaborations to support health-care innovation and our local economy.
- Coverage for major mental health issues and effective implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act serve our population well and these should be initiated in our state health plan.
- The State should look into some sort of protection/assistance for people who have gone bankrupt because of health-care costs.
