It is a fact that people today, whatever the reason, do not take proper care of their health whether due to a fast paced lifestyle or mere complacency. People just do not eat right and are way too inactive. That, together with a rapidly aging population has led to the healthcare industry being one of the fastest growing in the world. Healthcare jobs are consequently at a premium. As one of the largest industries in the US in 2008, healthcare provided 14.3 million jobs for wage and salary workers. Furthermore, ten of the twenty fastest growing occupations are healthcare related. Healthcare will generate 3.2 million new wage and salary jobs between 2008 and 2018, more than any other industry, largely in response to rapid growth in the elderly population. An occupation in healthcare is not only a wise choice for jobseekers but also a rewarding one.

Combining medical technology and the human touch, the healthcare industry diagnoses, treats, and administers care around the clock, responding to the needs of millions of people—from newborns to the terminally ill.

The establishments that make up the healthcare industry are varied in terms of size, staffing patterns, and organizational structures. The majority of healthcare establishments are offices of physicians, dentists, or other health practitioners. Although hospitals constitute a very small percentage of all healthcare establishments, they employ close to a third of all workers. Healthcare firms employ large numbers of workers in professional and service occupations. Together, these two occupational groups account for the vast majority of jobs in the industry. The next largest share of jobs is in office and administrative support. Management, business, financial and other occupations in healthcare made up the remainder.

Professional occupations, such as physicians and surgeons, dentists, registered nurses, social workers, and physical therapists, usually require tertiary qualification and often have high levels of responsibility and complex duties. In addition to providing services, these workers may supervise other workers or conduct research. Some professional occupations, such as medical and health services managers, have little to no contact with patients.

Health technologists and technicians work in many fast-growing occupations, such as medical records and health information. Technicians, diagnostic medical sonographers, radiologic technologists and technicians, and dental hygienists may operate medical equipment and assist health diagnosing and treating practitioners. They are typically graduates of 1-year or 2-year postsecondary training programs. Service occupations attract many workers with little or no specialized education or training. These workers are typically nursing aides, home health aides, building cleaning workers, dental assistants, medical assistants, and personal and home care aides. Nursing orhome health aides provide health-related services for ill, injured, disabled, elderly, or infirm individuals either in institutions or in their homes. By providing routine personal care services,personal and home care aides help elderly, disabled, and ill persons live in their own homes instead of in an institution. With experience and, in some cases, further education and training, service workers may advance to higher-level positions or transfer to new occupations.

Healthcare jobs, therefore, can attract a wide range of talents and offer a varied salary scale.

More Personal Care Articles

That is a very good question.

I am not sure any one thing will ‘save’ healthcare. We are in a time of ‘white water’ change in medicine. New discoveries and new treatments race to the bedside. There will instead be a constellation of things that will improve our healthcare systems. The future of medicine is in the provision of personalized medicine. This is typically discussed in relationship to the Humane Genome project and molecular medicine. However, it is much more than that.

Personalized medicine is providing the ‘right care at the right time’. Often in the management of chronic conditions care is arranged ‘just in case’. Appointments are scheduled into the future ‘just in case’ you need to be seen. This is a symptom of the tradition of medicine that dictated care to the patient rather than negotiated care with the patient. Personalized medicine will change our healthcare processes dramatically in the future. Personalized medicine will require our systems to provide ‘customized’ solutions for patients. Medications are chosen based on a genetic analysis of the patient. Other patient needs will also become important to meet. After hours clinics already seek to personalize care. Patients will be able to request or pull services without long queues. Some systems already allow patients to go online and select their appointment time without ever speaking to a clerk. The services they pull will be those that have value for them. Lean will provide the basis for understanding the value added activities that will compose personalized medicine.

Lean Thinking is directed at reducing waste. This will allow a greater productivity for those value added services. For this reason management science will be as important as basic sciences in the healthcare of the future. So called ‘implementation science’ or ‘translational science’ is little more than systematically applying management theory in the delivery of evidenced based practices. Currently it has been estimated that approximately 50% of a clinician’s time is not necessary and not value added in the eyes of the patient. If this waste is eliminated then clinician’s will be able to spend more of their time caring for patients. This will reduce frustration for both clinician and patient.

Currently most facilities are organized around functional department such as laboratory testing, radiology, and medical clinics. Patients travel from one site, queue up and after being ‘processed’ in that department are sent to another department. Thus for a 2 minute blood test, 5 minute radiograph of the chest and a 10 minute doctor’s visit the patient may have spent all day go to and from these functional villages. The clinics of the near future should be organized into a “cellular” model which will allow all the services to take place within the clinic, rather than this functional “village’ model where patients travel between functions such as lab, clinic and radiology. In the future those functions will be provided at the point of care. Personalized medicine will become the ‘right care, at the right time, in the right place’.

Lean Thinking in healthcare is not just about how to reduce the administrative burden or waiting times of the patient. It is also important to consider the costs that patients undergo in accessing services. Even if the patient does not pay personally for their care, there is a cost. Much of that cost is hidden and does not occur in the clinic or hospital. It occurs as a result of the time and effort to get to the hospital or clinic. An easy illustration is trouble a patient undergoes in traveling to the office, finding a parking place, then walking to the office and then repeating at the other ‘villages’. The travel costs represent a barrier to many of our patients. Technology solutions will allow an amendment to the mantra of ‘right care at the right time’ by providing care at a distance. Telemedicine and telehealth combined with point of care testing will be a norm. This will move medicine away from the bricks and mortar of the clinic and hospital. The mantra will become ‘the right care, at the right time, in the right place, using the right technology.’

Lean thinking actually challenges healthcare administrators to develop systems that provide ‘the right care, at the right time, in the right place using the right technology.’ By applying Lean Thinking as new services and buildings are considered all of this is possible today. The future is here. But it will take administrators and physician executives prepared to think lean to fully capitalize on the changes. So you could say that Lean Thinking will be as important to ‘saving’ healthcare as any advance in the biological sciences might be.

Associate Chief of Staff of Mental Health Service

Chief of Psychiatric Consultation and Emergency Psychiatry

Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System

Little Rock, AR 72205

More Personal Care Articles

Predictive Health-care may not be a household term quite yet, but basically this new, emerging way of delivering health-care in the US focuses on predicting health and its risk factors, as opposed to waiting for disease to begin. Predictive Health-care delivery is by no means a niche market idea in the realm of Alternative Medicine, a feasibility study has been published by a mainstream institution: Emory University Predictive Health Initiative. It alludes to the many advantages including cost savings.

The Change to “Measuring Health” before Discovering Disease

Health is commonly defined as the absence of disease symptoms, and it is disease symptoms that are commercially relevant. In fact, today’s Health-care systems are all set-up to measure disease, we are searching for what’s wrong, not what’s right. However, physical symptoms are evidence of the last stage in the progression of an Illness which originated much earlier. Thus, the purpose of Preventive- or Predictive Health is to identify any sign of degradation in the “whole Health”, usually referred to as Holistic Health and what is perceived as Vitality. Whole Health consists of the 6 interweaving elements: Physical – Mental – Emotional – Spiritual – Social – Intellectual Health. As Physical Illness is usually the final manifestation of an Emotional Trauma, treating the Physical Symptom is only a temporary fix. In the attempt to forestall Physical Illness we need to identify the potential cause for the loss of Vitality – and Lifestyle is the usual culprit. By Lifestyle we mean the person’s intentional choices such as Nutrition and Activities, and circumstantial factors, such as Environmental Exposure, History, Believes, Social Integration, etc.

Conventional Health-care is not concerned with these intertwining Mind-Body issues, because the medical science consensus neither extends to analytical methods nor the interpretation of results. The generally accepted medical standard for diagnosing disease rests on sample collection, which can be reduced to numerical values, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat, bone density and various biomarkers.

In Predictive Health such samples and methods may be used, but in presumed healthy people, these “disease markers” just resemble a snap shot of a condition at the time of sample collection. If all results check out in the “Normal” range, a person is considered physically healthy, even when all 5 non-physical health elements are compromised. In such case, a physical symptom has just not yet established itself measurably.

Holistic Health or Vitality may be defined as the sum of all 6-elements that comprise whole Health. A person, who has been clinically classified as physically healthy, may however completely lack Vitality, if any of the non-physical elements is weakened; while we may perceive a person to have great Vitality, if all health elements are strong and in harmony.

What is needed is a process that measures Vitality as the sum of all Health elements. As Vitality is a highly volatile condition, we cannot solely rely on static samples to predict a person’s susceptibility to contract any disease, nor can we recommend a Nutritional concept or Lifestyle modification based on static numericals, such as cholesterol, blood pressure, glucose and insulin. Instead, we have to dynamically monitor how well a person copes with lifestyle specific conditions that include various degrees of stress and rest, and we have to measure cellular function under changing situations. We want to assess the wear and tear that the body has undergone to date.

These Test results incorruptibly and reproducibly portray a person’s immunity, strengths and vulnerabilities . When correlated with the person’s history, lifestyle and personal objectives, a Lifestyle optimization program (behavior modification) can be generated that does not rely on lifetime prescription drugs.

Predictive Health – a quantum leap in Health-care

The passionate debates on Health-care reform are far from over and will not come to a consensus as long as it is wholly focused on pharmaceuticals based symptoms fixing, all while people get more concerned about their sustained Health.

A Japanese “Attitude Survey on Health and Preparation” (November 1, 2010; Hello-Global.com) states that 69.4% of the respondents “are worried about their future health”. There are more indications of people’s concerns about their future Health: In the US we are seeing sustained increase in growth rates for Organic Foods even in a recession. The statistics furnish the evidence that people are awaking to the fact that protecting health is better than recovering from illness. The leading market research and information analysis company RNCOS Press Release of October 29, 2010 reveals that the US Organic Food Industry will orchestrate 12.2% CAGR during 2010-2014. North American market growth for Organic Personal Care products amounts to 20% annually, according to Organic Monitor.

“Even in the midst of the economic downturn, the Gym, Health & Fitness Clubs industry has maintained steady growth, with membership rates growing consistently and profits remaining solid. Demand for gyms and health and fitness clubs will continue to rise over the next five years, as the general public becomes more health conscious and the aging population places a greater value on staying fit” – According to IBIS World Industry Report of September 17, 2010. Merriman Curhan Ford, Fitness & Wellness Industry Report predicts US sales of Health and Wellness goods to reach $ 170 billion by 2012, a growth of 70% in 5 years. Gym memberships for people over 50 will rise even more dramatic over the next 10 years with a target market potential of 139.2 million people by 2020; according to Capital Connection, March 2010 Newsletter. The Nutritional Supplements market in the US will exceed billion in 2014, yielding a compound annual growth rate of 7%; says Market Resaearch.com, in the September 2, 2010 Press Release.

These trend numbers clearly portray the global shift to Preventive Health, lead by the US which boasts the highest Health-care costs in the world. If we are truly concerned about our future health, evidenced by spending substantial money for healthy food and lifestyle, it should come naturally that we can no longer rely on drug-centric sick-care, but opt for Predictive and Preventive care.

The database is categorized into various sub-sectors including Pharmaceuticals, Hospitals, Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories, Medical Devices, Skin and Personal Care, Diagnostic Services, Contract Research and Manufacturing Services (CRAMS), Clinical Research, Fitness and Recreational Sports Centres, Animal Healthcare, Nutrional Supplements and others providing an easy tool for filtering within the sector.

The database includes Target Financials (Revenue, EBITDA and Net Income) and Deal Multiples (EV/Revenue, EV/ EBITDA, EV/Net Income) wherever possible, providing a benchmarking tool for valuation using industry mean and median multiple

The Directory include all the precedent transactions in India or with an India perspective along with nature of the deal such as Domestic, Inbound and Outbound Acquisition, Merger, Private Equity, Venture Capital Fund Raising, IPO, Buyback, Block Trade, etc and Transaction Rationale

For more information please refer to the below mentioned link:

http://www.ammindpower.com/dealdirectory.html

About A&M Mindpower Solutions

Founded in 2007, A&M Mindpower Solutions is a leading market research and information service provider in India. The company offers industry research, company profiles and Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Equity and Venture capital deal directories to the clients across a spectrum of industries.

A&M gathers from a wide range of sources using advanced information management tools, sophisticated analytical systems and methodologies and dedicated professional client services.

A&M is committed to the highest levels of professional standards and conduct and engages with the clients in developing an understanding of the various industries – segments and sub-segments, companies, competitors and suppliers.

A&M’s high quality research and analytics services can be assessed by the fact that most of its business is from repeat clients.

For More Information Please Visit:

http://www.ammindpower.com/

Home healthcare has become increasingly popular nowadays, as more elderly people need home medical care. Despite the improvement of medical care in the past few years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said that Australia like many developed countries is now facing an ageing population brought about by “sustained low fertility and increasing life expectancy.” For the year ended June 2009, 13.3% of Australia’s population is 65 years old and above including 383,400 people that are 85 years old and above.

Making the Choice

Because of the unintended consequences of the latest medical breakthroughs, millions of adults are now finding themselves taking care of older relatives and parents. The reality is that it is a tough choice to find a balance between caring for your older loved ones and taking care of your own needs. If you get sick then you will not be able to take care of them too. That is why there has been a growing need for specialised home nursing services from professional home care nurses.

The important thing is that getting home healthcare services will give you the needed break without taking for granted your love one’s medical care, consider the following benefits of letting a professional handle the difficult tasks:

1. Precious Time

Honestly, time is the most important factor if you want home healthcare services. Getting extra help is necessary and in this case, you can focus more of your time preparing for your parents’ birthdays or family reunion than spending it doing routine tasks like preparing medications or assisting household chores.

2. Professional Assistance

Home care nurses are much reliable than getting the services from those who do not know how to handle critical situations. Since they have the expertise and experience in dealing with emergency health situations, a professional personal care attendant will be able to respond to any emergency or life-and-death situations with immediate medical attention.

3. Social Interaction

No matter how much you love your parents or relatives and as much you have to keep constant communication and socialisation, you have to give them the chance to talk and interact with other people so that they will stay connected with what is happening to the world they live in. Even a simple companion care can sharpen their social skills with a personal care worker.

4. Patient Support and Medication

We are always worried if our loved ones does not eat on time or eat nutritiously especially if we cannot be there to give them a meal. On the other hand, not being able to provide timely medications may jeopardise your love ones’ health. Having home care nurses will make sure that your loved ones can eat a balance diet, take their medications on time and receive immediate medical care.

5. Accessibility

Since complete medical care is now in-house, you do not have to worry about missing work or school to take your loved ones to the nearest hospital or health centre. Elderly people who are not capable of independent living are provided community nursing services and necessary ambulatory care.

These are some of the benefits when getting home healthcare services for the elderly. Instead of being pressured and burdened by your responsibilities to your loved ones, don’t be a hero – consider home healthcare services as a practical alternative to trying to do everything on your own.

Personal care aides are among one of the most popular entity of home healthcare industry. This industry is growing every day, as people need home based health care to serve the essential need of their ailing loved ones, parents, grandparents, or sometime for them when they are seriously ill. People engaged in home healthcare have to perform several tasks depending upon the need of people.

Personal care aides are undoubtedly the backbone of home based health care services. Nowadays, becoming a personal care aide is an attractive career opportunity. For people with a kind heart, who have the zeal to serve others, home healthcare industry is the perfect place to start their career. To serve the increasing demand of home based health care services, more and more people are now heading towards being a personal care aide.

Usually a personal care aid has to work for people suffering from some kind of diseases, physical disability, or age related ailments. The primary work of personal care aides is to take care of everyday needs of such people. It can be giving them medicines or injections on time, or to provide them proper nutritious food as suggested by the medical experts, or to help them in some of their forever actions like morning or evening walk. Aides who have specialization in taking care of medical needs or nursing of patients are also known as nursing aides

However, people also need personal care aides to take care of their everyday work at home like cooking, cleaning of home, taking care of babies, or spending time with elderly members of family. Nowadays, in modern economic world, everybody is behind money and they are left with very less time after their professional or business related commitments. Due to that, they could not take proper care of their home and loved ones. Such people look forward to agencies offering personal care aides in order to solve this crucial issue.

People can now hire skilled, certified and licensed personal care aides for their loved ones with activities of daily living, rehabilitation or companionship. Home healthcare agencies are there to help people with all needs regarding nursing care, home health aides, personal care aides, home makers, or live in care.

In summary, it is not wrong if we say that personal care aides are need for modern society. Without them the life of people will be miserable. They help needy people in living a worry free and easy life by offering their skilled services when in need.

Oleta Fitzgerald, director of the Children’s Defense Fund’s Southern Regional Office, says she is concerned over the welfare of Mississippi children if either of the two health-care reform packages considered by the U.S. House and Senate ever make it into law.

The House passed H.R. 3962 earlier this month, and Senate Democrats managed to beat back the threat of a Republican filibuster a few weeks ago, allowing the Senate to move forward with debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, H.R. 3590. Both bills promise big reforms in the health-care and health-insurance industries. The Association for American Medical Colleges states that nearly 15 million people will be newly eligible for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program under H.R. 3590, at an estimated cost of $374 billion over 10 years.

Fitzgerald says both bills contain huge holes regarding CHIP coverage for Mississippi children: “Right now, the fight over health-care reform in the House and Senate is all about abortion and the public option, but the children are getting lost in this discussion,” Fitzgerald said.

The issue, she said, centers on Mississippi’s unconventional requirement for CHIP eligibility.

Many states recently expanded their Medicaid program requirements to accept people who are a little further from the federal standard for poverty. Eleven states recently extended CHIP-eligible families’ income levels up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or higher. ($20,800 for an individual or $35,200 for a family of three).

But instead of expanding Medicaid, Mississippi set up a new health insurance program that contracts with private insurance companies. The states that expanded Medicaid will continue to receive federal support for those programs under both the bills under discussion in the House and Senate. But in Mississippi, all children and their families over 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($16,245 a year for an individual and $27,465 a year for a family of three) would go into an insurance exchange created by the House and Senate bills. The Senate bill plans to put CHIP-eligible kids in an exchange by the year 2019, while the House bill has them transferred by 2013.

Insurance exchanges do not promise the reliability of a government health program, Fitzgerald warns.

“Going into the exchange could require co-pays and premiums, the children would get lumped in with adults, and it’s not clear what requirements the insurance companies would have for their benefit packages,” she said.

There is also the question of permanence. Exchanges like the ones proposed by the House and Senate bills have not always been long-lasting. Texas, Florida, North Carolina and California all attempted—and failed—to create enduring insurance exchanges, primarily because private insurers tampered with the market.

A July report issued by the California HealthCare Foundation tried to pinpoint some of the factors that killed the California insurance exchange, which closed its doors in 2006. According to the report, the California exchange became too expensive when the clients it served became too costly. An exchange requires a certain number of healthy individuals to complement the more sickly participants of the exchange’s customer base; otherwise the cost of participation becomes too high for all participants.

But insurance companies in California lured healthy customers with lower premiums and steered the more sickly individuals into the exchange, creating a disproportionately expensive customer base.

“People involved in operations of the California exchange agreed that when there is competition for the same customers within and outside the exchange, the exchange is in ‘extreme peril’ of becoming a victim of adverse selection,” the report states. “If an exchange attracts a disproportionate share of higher risk individuals and groups as the California exchange did at various times, it cannot succeed.”

Fitzgerald said Mississippi’s eagerness to boot CHIP-eligible children from the program to keep down state costs is another factor complicating the new bills.

“Another problem is enrollment. We need enrollment in the exchanges to be simplified, because enrolling in state health programs have a history of being anything but simple in Mississippi,” Fitzgerald said, referencing a Medicaid policy championed by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, which requires Medicaid recipients to meet Medicaid personnel “face-to-face” to be considered for program renewal.

CDF is working with its national office in trying to insert an amendment in the Senate bill though Democratic Sens. Robert Casey and Jay Rockefeller, which would keep all children up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level in the CHIP program until the new insurance exchange is thoroughly vetted.

Watch the video related to health care reform bill

]]> http://www.klexus.com/health-care-reform-to-dump-poor-kids.html/feed 4 http://www.klexus.com/big-pharma-friends-poised-for-massive-profits-from-health-care-reform.html http://www.klexus.com/big-pharma-friends-poised-for-massive-profits-from-health-care-reform.html#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 03:12:27 +0000 admin http://www.klexus.com/?p=19

While Democrats shoot themselves in both feet trying to explain how their proposed health care reform will be able to contain costs over time, there is another much better organized group who is pushing very hard to get this legislation through and is poised for dramatic profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.  That group is the lobbyists that represent Big Pharma, the American Medical Association, hospital groups, and insurance companies.

According to OpenSecrets.org these groups put up $484 million in lobbying money in 2008, getting ready for this legislation.  You can just imagine how much they are spending this year.  The reason you can imagine the sum must be quite large is because Obama and company are doing absolutely nothing to address the key issues of how these groups plan to profit from a government-backed stream of millions of new customers.

The trend in the last several years is that employer-sponsored health care plans are shrinking and individual policies are too expensive for many.  Government and private insurance are cozying up and private insurance companies are playing a middle-man role in programs like Medicare and Medicaid. At stake is the dividing of the hundreds of billions of dollars per year pie created by fraudulent Big Pharma sales.

The lobbying scenario is quite different than the previous Clinton attempt at a health care overhaul.  At that time health industry was by and large against what was going on. This time they are fully on board and pushing very hard to make something happen, jockeying for their position in the New World Health Order.

The sad reality is that this group profits from sickness.  They like poor health.  They know individuals and companies can’t afford what they have to offer, so they have to call it “health care” or “health insurance,” and run a publicity campaign designed to make the American public feel guilty for not paying for everyone’s often fraudulent care.

Their current agenda is to bilk dying cancer patients of $50,000 to $100,000 with drugs that have no chance of curing anything yet extend life two or three months.  By the way, I have a solution for this problem.  No payment should be owed unless the cancer treatment given extends life a full year past the conclusion of the treatment.  Writing that into the current legislation would immediately stop massive fraud.

Big Pharma really got excited a few years back when they saw minorities were the biggest new users of the expanded Medicare program, responsible for a 5% increase in drug sales when other demographics were flattening.  This new pot of gold, the 46 million currently uninsured, are quite frankly the most unhealthy members of the population due in no small part to their own failures to take care of themselves.  Big Pharma is licking its chops because this is not care for emergency needs, this is ongoing sales of highly profitable drugs that “need” to be taken every day and are a major cash cow.

Obama is making no effort to be able to negotiate drug prices with this band of thugs – as their lobbies are running roughshod over Republicans and Democrats alike.  Imagine an industry where you can sell a product for 100 times what it costs to produce, because taxpayers foot the bill.  That is the general Big Pharma mark up, and many drugs sell for a thousand times their cost to produce.  This issue isn’t even addressed.

On top of that, many of the best-selling drugs being crammed down the throats of Americans are completely useless in terms of improving the public health.  This includes statins, bone drugs, brain drugs, and many other types of medication.  Furthermore, the actually safety of the majority of these drugs is almost completely unknown, which is why there are millions of injuries requiring hospitalization each year and over one hundred thousand needless deaths per year.  There is one drug scandal after another, as Big Pharma tries to wrack up sales while hiding risk data and hoping to make a killing before they are stopped.

How can the American public be so gullible as to stand for this.  There is no way taxpayers can carry the burden of this fraud.  It is what is already driving the high cost of health care and unless it is addressed adding millions of new users to this system will only make it worse and more costly for everyone.

Just about everyone I know is in favor of some sort of health care safety net for people with serious health problems, especially those that were not caused by their own doing.  Of course everyone would like health care to be more affordable.  However, the current health care system is already being scammed for hundreds of billions per year.  The newly proposed system will simply expand the scope of the existing problem.  It is high time that someone in power take the bull by the horns.

No sane solution even has a chance as long as there are the big-spending lobbies buying the laws they want, spending their money to make sure taxpayers will keep sending them hundreds of billions more each year.  There are many elements within the health care system that are nothing but parasites.

Watch the video related to health care reform bill

]]> http://www.klexus.com/big-pharma-friends-poised-for-massive-profits-from-health-care-reform.html/feed 5 http://www.klexus.com/its-time-now-to-focus-on-arizonas-health-care-system.html http://www.klexus.com/its-time-now-to-focus-on-arizonas-health-care-system.html#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 03:12:49 +0000 admin http://www.klexus.com/?p=24

Since last spring, the noisy and sometime rancorous health-care-reform debate has kept all eyes and ears on Washington. It now appears the probability is high that a health-care-reform bill will be signed by President Obama. Given what our state is contemplating with respect to the next round of budget cuts, I think some sharp focus on health care in Arizona is needed – now.

Gov. Jan Brewer has rightfully placed all options on the table in her difficult and, at times, bruising work with other state leaders to address what is approaching a $2 billion shortfall in our state budget.

This includes a request by the governor to all state agencies asking for plans that will cut each agency’s budget by 15 percent. A significant part of these reductions will come from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) and other state health programs. AHCCCS is Arizona’s Medicaid program.

At first blush, a 15 percent AHCCCS reduction may seem like a necessary although painful action that we must take. However, the math behind a 15 percent cut at AHCCCS isn’t so straightforward. It is critical that our state’s leaders and the general public appreciate the fact that every dollar spent in AHCCCS is matched by $3 from the federal government. The real formula that would quickly emerge from a 15 percent reduction by AHCCCS is cut one dollar and lose three more.

The elimination of Arizona’s KidsCare program also is being contemplated. If this insurance is eliminated for 47,000 children in Arizona, we will not save a dime for the people of this state. Once uninsured, many of these children will need health care, but they will become at-risk for delayed care due to the cost of that care.

Routine health care matters. Illness or injury left untreated can quickly evolve into serious or even catastrophic health-care issues. As a result, many of these children eventually will get their care in the most expensive health-care settings – ERs and hospital rooms. A great deal of the costs for this care will then be shifted to Arizona’s insured consumers.

If we assume that national health-care reform will significantly cover more people, we also should assume it will take many years for this coverage to be implemented. In my view, retaining KidsCare until another plan becomes available makes good sense for Arizona.

Another cut being proposed is a 30 percent reduction in the state’s contribution to Graduate Medical Education. This cut ultimately could reduce the number of physicians in the state.

Hard decisions must be made to address the state’s climbing budget shortfall, and all of us must be part of the solution. Our governor and Legislature deserve that support. However, decisions that look good on paper or even on a budget spreadsheet in the short term, can prove highly damaging to the state’s fiscal health and people’s physical health in the long term.

Watch the video related to health care reform bill

]]> http://www.klexus.com/its-time-now-to-focus-on-arizonas-health-care-system.html/feed 5