Representative Jim Ward

BY Dion Lefler
The Wichita Eagle

A legislative forum Wednesday highlighted the deep. Divisions that have prevented the state Leglslature from passing comprehensive health-care reform.

The Republican panelists, Sen. Susan Wagle and Rep. Brenda Landwehr, talked about health care savmgs accounts and tort reform to reduce cost. The Democrats, Reps. Jim Ward and Geraldme Flaharty talked about Universal health and smoking bans.

While just about everyone agrees the health care system needs fixing, the Legislature has made only incremental changes, and consensus on major action remains elusive.

'We fundamentally disagree on some of the 'long-term, macro goals," Ward said.

The most impassioned arguments in the forum came from Wagle and Landwehr. Wagle, a cancer survivor and mother of a son with leukemua, said she saw too many patients on public health assistance who could have afforded to take responsibility for their care.

''They're talking about the HBO show they watched last night and have a new cell phone every time they come to the office," she said.

"We have created a generation who believes welfare is a job," added Landwehr, who talked about her experience as a single mother receiving government assistance.

That got a rise out of Ward who said health care is a fundamental right and the uninsured are ordinary people, most of whom work.

"I reject fundamentally that people in need of health care are poor," Ward said. "I reject fundamentally that providing health care is charity or welfare.'"

Costs are soaring Douglas Bradham, a University of Kansas health economist, said health care costs have grown at an alarming rate.

"Since 1999, the average annual premium for health insurance has risen from $4,471 to $7,129. Health care cost the United States $2.1 trillion in 2006, he said. "That's the equivalent of 16 percent of the gross domestic product. One problem is that the healthiest sector of society is also the most uninsured. About 22 percent of those ages 18-54 are uninsured, compared to 11 percent of children younger than 18 and 14 percent of people ages 54-64."

"Ofthe uninsured, 39.5 percent are white, 36.5 percent are Hispanic and 17 percent are black," he said. "Two-thirds ofthe uninsured are employed full time but either can't afford or choose not to have health insurance," he said.

"The nation's health care system, in turn, heavily rooted in employer-subsidized care, is putting the U.S. at a disadvantage," he said. "Employers operate in a global market and are having trouble competing."

For example, he cited the competitionfor an air-refueling tanker contract between Boeing Co. and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. Boeing's bids have to include health care costs for the company's workers, while Airbus employees receive health care from their governments.

Ward and Flaharty said they would continue to advocate in the Legislature for universal health care. They also said they would work for preventive care and programs to reduce smoking obesity and alcohol and drug use.

For Flaharty that includes a ban on smoking in public places.

Wagle and Landwehr both support health-care savings accounts, which would provide tax breaks to workers to set aside a portion of their salary to pay health costs. That would allow the workers to buy cheaper "catastrophic" insurance policies and pay for routine health care out of pocket.

The advantages, they said, include providing a wider range of medical choices, an incentive not to overuse the medical system and allowing people to take their health care with them when they change jobs.

"Another way to reduce individuals' costs would be to get more young adults on insurance to spread the risk across a larger, generally healthier population,"
Wagle said.

''We really need to consider a mandate for the young," she said.

In addition to cost, Landwehr, said, one reason many younger workers don't buy health insurance is that they don't think they'll get sick.

That brought head shakes of disagreement from some care providers in the audience.

Chad Roseberger, a manager with the Grace Med clinic that provides care to the uninsured, said that for 18- to 35-year-olds who don't have insurance, the issue is almost always a matter of cost.

''What they'd be paying, especially for family coverage, would take the majority of