Panel to address issues

The Eastern Maine Medical Center Auxiliary’s Health Care Forum on May 1 will feature six panelists who will share their knowledge, experience, and recommendations about health care and health-care reform.

Some panelists may be familiar to the audience, since these professionals have played leading roles in health-care trends and how those trends affect Maine businesses, hospitals, and individual Mainers.

All six panelists have distinct messages for Maine people, and especially for those who attend the forum. Attendees will have the added advantage of being able to pose concerns and questions to them from any of three forum touchstones: social policy, the health-care profession, and health-care administration and financing.

Each segment will begin with an address by the individual panelists in their respective segments. Following these opening remarks, scheduled to last about ten minutes each, the floor will be opened to members of the public to ask general questions about how health-care reform will affect them, or bring more personal issues to light.

Health-care reform has become such a hotbed of contention since President Clinton’s announcement of his goal of universal health insurance for all Americans. Panelists’ views and answers to audience concerns may reduce anxiety for some, while others may be left frustrated with the process.

State Senator John Baldacci

“The health-care crisis is not about quality of care. The crisis is about access. Too many Americans lack health-care insurance. They do not seek care even when facilities are readily available because they cannot afford it.

“The crisis is about cost. When large segments of the population either cannot or do not pay their fair share, others must assume that financial burden. This results in cost shifting and escalating health-insurance premiums.

Norman A. Ledwin, president and CEO, Eastern Maine Healthcare and Eastern Maine Medical Center

“My message is the format that reform is taking, how it will impact the individual citizen and the region.

“Regardless of what program is adopted by the federal or state government, there surely will be change. I do believe the initial impetus for change was originated with the payor sector, i.e. business and industry.”

Lea Acord, R.N., Ph.D., director, School of Nursing, University of Maine

“I’ll be responsible for discussing the role of providers, and

specifically about advanced- practice nurses, as appropriate, cost-effective primary-care providers.

“I’ll also discuss some concerns of health-care providersas cost-cutting measures take place, where providers will provide care and who is appropriate to provide that care.

Franklin E. Bragg, M.D., Head of Internal Medicine Section, EMMC

“The biggest message people are going to get: things are not going to be the same. It’s going to impact doctors, hospitals, and patients. All three parties aren’t going to have as much freedom as before.

“We’ve got to have universal coverage. It’s a social embarrassment as a country that we don’t have that. We ought to look very closely at explicit rationing of health care, in opposition to the implicit rationing that’s going on now.”

David F. Wihry, Ph.D., chair, Department of Economics, University of Maine

“I served for more than eight years as a member of the Maine Health Care Finance Commission, and I was chair of the Commssion from 1984 through 1987.

“I expect to give an economist’s perspective on health-care reform. The issues that economists tend to focus on are the equitableness and efficiency of the health-care system.”

Daniel B.Coffey, chief financial officer, EMH and EMMC

“I plan to focus on the impact of federal and state regulation and reform on the financing of health-care services. Another topic may address government-payment shortfalls and cost shifting.

“With regard to health-care reform, I will touch on the economic incentives that need to be in place in any sort of reform initiative. I will also talk about some areas where we need to be careful that we don’t create economic disincentives to do the right thing: to be able to place patients in the most cost-effective site for care.”