Health perspective

the Hutchinson News ^ | 11/21/09 | RICHARD A. BROWN

[kathsua]

As a president of Krause Co., I have two primary responsibilities - a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders for best return on their capital, and the health and safety of our employees and families (approximately 600 in total). I have control over our financial performance and should be held accountable, and fortunately we are doing well.

In regard to the safety of our direct employees, we too have control and accountability. Krause spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on safety training, equipment, process and procedures. I am proud of our people who take their safety and their peers' safety to heart with the result of excellence. The average "Lost Time Accident" (LTA) for companies similar to Krause is 1.8 per year, whereas Krause has completed nearly three years with NO LTAs.

My prime purpose in writing is in regard to health care insurance. Yes, Krause provides a good health insurance program, but the cost has risen consistently to the point of unaffordability for both the company and employees. We are united, the Krause company and employees, in condemning the linear and artificially driven national health expenditures as a percent of GDP (U.S. health care spending has risen, and never decreased, for 43 consecutive years, from 5.9 percent of GDP in 1965 to 16.5 percent in 2008).

It is statistically impossible and historically unprecedented to have any trend be absolutely linear in its increase, making it unresponsive to the economy, income levels, competition, health care use levels, technology breakthroughs, etc. What better proof that the concept of check and balance or the marketplace will correct has failed than this 40-plus-year trend of always rising costs. I have no control over health care costs or insurances as I do with most other cost inputs to our company, and that is frustrating.

It was my privilege to testify in Washington, D.C., before Congress (House Committee on Small Business) in October 2008, where I stated that U.S. health care costs were a greater threat to small businesses than $140/barrel oil.

We need to add to the discussion about health care how we will reduce costs (but not service levels), not just how to pay. And keep in mind, for the marketplace to work it needs an informed and educated consumer to make rational economic decisions, which is a rare consumer ability in the health care field. We don't ask it for people to source and regulate energy, transportation and defense supply decisions, nor do we "negotiate" for our health care. There are successful models, such as the veterans (VA) health care system (which is often rated as the best in the U.S.), Canada's single-payer system (better health quality statistics than the U.S. at a lower cost), and, yes, France which has the No. 1 rating for health quality statistics in the world.

Krause and our employees and families need our elected officials to address this crisis with leadership, excellence, compassion and an urgency to put the average American above all other interests, including their own. This is a moral responsibility as well as economic, so please act courageously for all of us.

[kathsua]

Many companies want to insure their workers, but will they be able to under Obamacare?

[DrC]

“the veterans (VA) health care system (which is often rated as the best in the U.S.), Canada’s single-payer system (better health quality statistics than the U.S. at a lower cost), and, yes, France which has the No. 1 rating for health quality statistics in the world.”

Yet mysteriously, ardent single payer advocate Ted Kennedy didn’t fly either to France or Canada to get brain surgery. Nor did he even go to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda (even though as a member of Congress, he was entitled to get free care there). Instead, he went to a private teaching hospital right here in the U.S. because he knew where the best medical care in the world could be obtained. Come to think of it, can anyone name even 1 member of Congress who has elected to go to France or Canada for major surgery rather than the U.S.?

Actions speak louder than words.