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Health Care

Local Health Providers, Insurers Respond To Supreme Court Ruling

By Vicky Janowski, posted Jun 28, 2012

Wilmington-area health providers and insurance agents had mixed reactions Thursday to the long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the federal health reform law.

While some expressed relief that the court did not strike down the looming mandate that nearly everyone in the country have health insurance coverage by 2014 or face penalties, others said the same concerns they had initially about the law’s effectiveness remained unchanged.

“I think it would have been a disaster if they had voted the other way,” said James Moore, president of Wilmington-based James E. Moore Insurance Agency, which offers health plans. “If this did not pass, we would have to go back and undo a lot of stuff to get to where we were, which was less than desirable.”

Moore said the law, though open to criticism, attempts to get more people who are now uninsured and can receive expensive care through emergency departments paying into the system.

Not all area insurers remain convinced, however, that the law’s insurance coverage mandates will deliver on promises to start containing rising health care costs.

“I don’t think the legislation will achieve that in a reasonable way,” said Jim Williams, a benefit consultant with Woodbury & Co. who mainly works with health plans.

He said the justices essentially sent the issue back to Congress and made it more of a political debate again.

Republicans already were calling for overturning President Barack Obama’s health care law as part of their campaign messages for November.

The court’s ruling likely will galvanize that even more.

“I guess we’re going to hear a whole lot more about it during the next three or four months leading up to the election,” Williams said.

Though some of the 2010 law’s provision have gone into effect, including letting those 26 and younger stay on their parents’ plans, the bulk of the major changes, such as creating new health insurance exchanges and enforcing the fines for not having coverage, are still on the horizon.

Jeff James, CEO of Wilmington Health, said the practice has watched the health care law’s debate closely but not done a lot of preparing for it in particular.

He said he believed the real ways to lower health costs – developing more care collaborations, innovating approaches to treatment and moving toward patient-centered organizations for example – are the things that will drive true reform in the industry.

He said that with or without Thursday’s court ruling, Wilmington Health would have continued on that path.

“For us, what we believe is health care reform is really not dependent on one law or policy," James said.

He pointed out that the unknown political situation also means less closure from the ruling.

“Us or the employers or the insurance companies, nobody can feel certain about what can happen,” he said.

The ruling does not change New Hanover Regional Medical Center's role as the region's safety-net hospital, John Gizdic, executive vice president of strategic services, said Thursday afternoon.

"We will continue to care for everyone who needs medical care, regardless of their ability to pay. We will also continue to focus on providing high quality, cost-efficient care," he said in an email. "The Affordable Care Act provides some opportunities to improve the overall delivery of health care in the United States, but we continue to have concerns on many levels. Many of the legislation's cuts to hospital reimbursements are already in place, and many more are to come. These cuts will cost New Hanover Regional Medical Center an estimated $222 million over the next 10 years."

He said that beyond the individual insurance mandate, the law does include opportunities to move to care focusing on population health instead of traditional fee-for-service models.

"If funded, these initiatives should support coordination of care among doctors, hospitals and all providers that will not only result in better patient outcomes, but reduction in unnecessary spending," Gizdic said.

Shelbourn Stevens, president of Brunswick Novant Medical Center, said that while the Affordable Care Act wasn’t perfect, the “decision to uphold the law, though, does improve access to healthcare services.”

“At Brunswick Novant Medical Center, we support the expansion of health coverage because it creates better access to medical care,” he said in a statement. “Our physicians, nurses and other staff witness the adverse effects, every day, among uninsured patients who are not accessing primary and preventive care. While we offer financial assistance and charity care to the poor and uninsured, there are many people who still fall through the cracks and, as a result, either seek care too late or not at all.”

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