Indiana Doc Leads Healthcare for All Fight

The Indianapolis Star has this artcle about Dr. Rob Stone.  You may not agree with everything he says, but at least he’s out there trying to do something about the insurance problem.

Stone, an emergency room physician at Bloomington Hospital, has emerged as one of Indiana’s most outspoken advocates for making insurance accessible to all. He is co-founder and director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan, which contends that the current system is too profit-driven, too inefficient, and leaves too many people without affordable access to health care.

One of Stone’s favorite targets is Indiana’s largest health-care insurance provider, Indianapolis-based WellPoint, a $61 billion health insurance giant that provides coverage to 35 million people in America.

“WellPoint epitomizes our system,” he said. “They’re it.”

Stone’s PowerPoint presentation lays out his case. A Medicare-type program for all is better than the current system, he says. Medicare is currently for the elderly.

One slide — with information attributed to the International Journal of Health Services in 2005 — shows Medicare overhead spending was 3.1 percent of its budget, compared with 26.5 percent for investor-owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans.

Another slide — with information from the Employer Health Benefits Annual Survey and Bureau of Labor Statistics — showed that from 2000 to 2006 health insurance premiums rose 87 percent while workers’ earnings rose 18 percent.
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For its part, WellPoint sees having a competitive, free-market system as key to improving the quality of care and controlling costs.

“We believe a single-payer health-care system would hinder progress in these areas by eliminating competition and restricting patient choice and could require patients to endure long wait times for care while possibly reducing the quality of health care,” WellPoint spokesman Jim Kappel said in an e-mail.

In its recent earnings report, WellPoint touted that it lowered its administrative expenses to 14.5 percent of premium revenue in 2007 from 15.7 percent in 2006 even as it added 708,000 members.

The company also pointed to flaws in other nations’ health-care systems.

“In Canada, which has a single-payer system, the average wait between a general practitioner referral and a specialty consultation at times has been longer than 17 weeks.”

Stone stands by his position. He recalls a patient who refused to seek treatment for chest pains that turned out to be a heart attack. He finally sought treatment for a second attack, only because the first attack left him disabled — but now eligible for government coverage.

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“Medicare works pretty well, and it’s been around for a long time, so why not pattern something after Medicare?”

Delaware Judge Now Says He is Extortion Victim

In a follow up to my post yesterday, Delaware County Circuit Court Judge Wayne Lennington now says he was a victim of an extortion plot, according to the Muncie Star Press:

Judge Wayne Lennington said Friday he believed an extortion attempt might have kindled an already existing investigation into his business affairs.

“If I would have paid him, I’m sure it wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” said the Delaware Circuit Court 5 judge. “But I wasn’t going to do that.”

On Friday, Lennington provided The Star Press with a copy of an e-mail whose author threatened to deliver to federal investigators information that was damaging to Lennington and a business partner, Joseph Gray, unless the men paid him $250,000.

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The judge said he believed his extortionist was an Ohio man he had met once through Gray.

In a May 30, 2007 e-mail to Gray, the man purportedly wrote, “My attorney assures me that the material in my possession are sufficient to have Judge Lennington removed from the bench, and the both of you criminally prosecuted.”

Furthermore, the e-mail stated the man would be willing to turn over to investigators:

Taped conversations between himself and Gray about Gray’s relationship with Lennington.

Faxes to him from Lennington’s home.

“Copies of prints from the golf course,” which Lennington believes is a reference to an aerial photograph Lennington provided Gray of a Delaware County golf course they were considering buying.

Information about “unfettered access” to tax sale information.Sometime after receiving the e-mail, Gray showed the message to Lennington, the judge said.Lennington told The Star Press he had never done anything illegal so he felt comfortable sharing the extortion message with state police and Delaware County Prosecutor Mark McKinney’s office.

The judge could not provide a precise timeline concerning when Gray first provided him the e-mail and when he notified authorities.

Lennington said he has not heard back from the police or prosecutor.

While Lennington was under investigation before the extortion attempt, the fact that he refused to cooperate with the extortionist might have indirectly “intensified” investigators efforts to bring him down, the judge suggested.

He questioned whether the extortionist, embittered by Lennington’s resolve, was feeding authorities false information that the judge conspired with Gray in illegal scams.

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An effort to reach the alleged extortionist through the e-mail address provided by Lennington was unsuccessful.

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Lennington didn’t mention the extortion letter during the Thursday interview in which he confirmed he was being investigated. The judge said he wasn’t comfortable with releasing the letter until a second conversation with a reporter on Friday.

Inside H.B. 1288: Certified Behavior Analysts

H.B. 1288 requires the state to establish the State Board of Behavior Analysts.  Behavior Analysis, as defined by the bill “means the design, implementation, and evaluation of instructional and environmental modifications to produce socially significant improvements in human behavior through skill acquisition and the reduction of problematic behavior”.  It allows for two levels of Analysts, one requires a Bachelor’s degree, while the other requires a Master’s degree, although the degree can be in any area.  Both certifications require a test and supervised hours.  The requirements mimic the requirements of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, a non-profit Florida Corporation.

Background

This legislation was first requested at an Indiana Commission on Autism meeting.  Specifically, the commission was asked by Michelle Trivedi, “parent of an autistic child, for the commission to support legislation to be introduced in the 2008 session of the General Assembly that would require board certification for applied behavior analysts.”  The commission heard from Ms. Trivedi, but had many significant questions and did not recommend the legislation be pursued in it’s final report.  However, Rep. Vanessa Summers and Rep. Phil Hinkle, both commission members, introduced the legislation in the 2008 session.

Legislative Progress

Upon introduction, the legislation became very controversial for several reasons.  First, it did not exempt any professionals currently licensed to practice medicine, psychology, mental health counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy.  Because the definition of what behavior analysis is, it would require all of those professions to become certified as behavior analysts to continue to practice with the licenses they already have.  Thankfully, the authors of the bill agreed to amend the bill to effectively state no-one could use the title Certified Behavior Analyst, unless they are certified.  With this amendment, the concerns of the already licensed professionals were satisfied and they did not oppose the bill in the house.  The bill passed the House last week and is now awaiting a hearing in the Senate Corrections, Criminal, and Civil Matters Committee.