SPECIAL REPORT: Carol Sorrell, president and CEO, Kern Health Systems
| Thursday, May 28 2009 06:36 PM
Last Updated Thursday, May 28 2009 06:36 PM
Loading Stories
Advertisement
Images:
Carol Sorrell
Is there anything wrong with health care in Kern County? Plenty. There are not enough people in Kern County with adequate health-care coverage and, for those of us who do have coverage, the escalating costs have made how to pay for that coverage a topic of considerable discussion.
Health-care coverage usually comes from an employer, and it costs more than many employers can afford to pay. People without employer-provided coverage either pay for individual coverage, have coverage through a program of the federal government or have no coverage at all.
With the big upswing in loss of jobs with employer-based coverage, lack of coverage is a problem that is only going to get worse. With little to no coverage, health care is hard to access and is often delivered in the most expensive settings, like hospital emergency rooms.
Should Washington be the place to fix health care? It has to be. Federal programs account for almost half of all health-care payments, and the federal government dictates most of the standards controlling how health care is delivered and paid for. State efforts to reform health care have consisted mostly of programs to get more federal dollars for health care into the state.
Will local providers and systems like Kern Health Systems still be viable under national health care reform? They have to be, or it won’t work.
If the federal government can create a set of rules that provide adequate coverage, help change incentives in the system so costs become more reasonable, and allow for healthy competition that includes participation of locally controlled public health plans like Kern Health Systems, we can have both higher quality and less costly health care in Kern County.
