Baptist Hospital and the Uninsured - Another Perspective

RE: Editorial, Help for uninsured

Baptists hospital’s decision to favor vendors who provide health coverage to their employees may me just one of those PR bubbles.
Facing double-digit increases in healthcare expenditures employers can simply not afford offering affordable health insurance. They can drop health insurance, offer health insurance for a few employees and let go of the others or try providing barebones health insurance with significant out-of pocket expenditures for all.
Baptist hospital decision may very well push small companies out of the market, which just cannot compete under those conditions leaving big corporations in the game.
We should assist instead of punishing small employers.
What we need are: national insurance purchasing pools, risk diversification to minimize the impact of catastrophic medical bills on small companies, individualized insurance packages not limited by state insurance mandates, and not-for profit state or national prescription purchasing plans that can negotiate the most competitive prices with drug manufactures.
The US health insurance system is broken favoring the healthy and punishing the sick.
It requires a sustained bipartisan effort to fix it now to save small businesses from certain demise.

Bernd Wollschlaeger,MD,FAAFP
Vice-President Dade County Medical Association
16899 NE 15th Avenue
North Miami Beach,FL 33162
(305) 940-8717

TRAIGHT TO THE POINT
Help for uninsured
Baptist Hospital’s new policy of favoring vendors who provide health coverage to their employees is a good example of doing well by doing good. The policy will affect more than 10,000 suppliers -- and undoubtedly will make a difference.
It is based on a simple, effective idea: Encourage firms to offer vital health benefits. This is good for employees and for communities that often subsidize uninsured patients at public hospitals and clinics. Studies have shown that insured people seek more preventive care, which promotes better health and lessens the need for more-expensive, last-minute treatment.
Baptist will benefit, too, because it provides health care for many uninsured -- at a cost of more than $100 million last year. Let us hope that the trend catches on and shrinks South Florida's uninsured population.