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Contact: Liz Carroll
Phone: 413/775-1420
E-mail: carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
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Release date: October 11, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Community authorities discuss access to affordable health care

Healthcare Forum is Monday, Oct. 18th from 6:30 to 8:30 in the GCC Café

"This year, all of us, together, will spend over $50 billion on health care in Massachusetts, for an average of almost $8,000 per person. That makes our health care the most expensive in the world,” says Dr. Alan Sager, Professor of Health Services at Boston University School of Public Health, and Director of the Health Reform Program.

Dr. Sager joins a panel of Franklin County's foremost healthcare executives to discuss access to affordable health care.

In addition to Dr. Sager, panel participants include Michael Skinner, President of Franklin Medical Center, Dr. Sarah Kemble, Executive Director of the Community Health Center of Franklin County, and Sandy Eaton, R.N., Board of Directors, Massachusetts Nurses Association. Mary Siano, of the Franklin Hampshire Health Care Coalition will moderate the discussion. GCC President Robert L. Pura will introduce the event.

"GCC is pleased to sponsor this very important community discussion,” says President Pura. "We take seriously our responsibility to provide an environment for healthy dialogue on the challenges facing this community.”

"We spend so much already that we should be able to take care of everyone who lives here, yet we do not,” said Dr. Sager recently. "Hundreds of thousands of us have no health insurance. Many other hundreds of thousands risk loving coverage.”

It's a situation that mushrooms, inviting the prospect of "medical meltdown,” according to Dr. Sager. "As premiums soar, it becomes harder each year for employers to finance health insurance for the people who work for them. As federal deficits soar, the Bush administration redoubles its efforts to cap payments to states for the Medicaid program. But it's only growth in people covered by Medicaid that has kept the number of uninsured Americans from exploding. At the same time, premiums for Medicare keep rising, and the new Medicare prescription drug benefit both adds to the federal deficit while doing far too little to protect senior citizens and disabled Americans.

We can do much better. One-half of today's health spending is wasted on unnecessary care, paperwork, excess prices, and outright theft. We can squeeze out much of this fat and recycle it as care to overcome pain, disability, and premature death. The challenge we face is to find ways to do this, and to work with physicians, employers, hospitals, HMOs, and elected officials to reshape Massachusetts health care. There's little time. Medical meltdown awaits us all.”