Group gathers at VCU to tout health-care reform

The nation's health-care numbers are enough to make you sick:

• Nearly 47 million Americans are without health insurance.

• The current system costs $2.3 trillion a year -- the most expensive in the world by far -- and delivers the 37th-best quality of care, according to the World Health Organization.

• In Virginia, more than 2.1 million are uninsured, including 208,000 children, thanks to health-care costs that have risen 83 percent between 2007 and 2007.

"The problem is immense, and it's only gotten worse over the last decade," said Dr. Lerla Joseph, a primary-care physician practicing in South Richmond. The current system, she said, "is not working."

So last night, Joseph was seated among a panel of local physicians, health-care advocates and community organizers who gathered at Virginia Commonwealth University to discuss the problem, the prospects and the need for universal health-care reform currently being debated in Washington.

The "Health Care Reform Town Hall" also had the stamp of Organizing for America -- the social-networking, grass-roots political arm of President Barack Obama. Brandyn Keating, state coordinator in Virginia for the group, encouraged the 75 people in attendance to reach out and mobilize support for congressional passage of a combined reform bill this year.

"We have a very unique window of opportunity," she said.

The president and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will hold an online town-hall-style event today at 1 p.m. in Northern Virginia to promote reforms the administration says will reduce costs, guarantee choice and ensure quality care.

Health-care premiums grew four times faster than wages in Virginia in 2007, according to a study distributed by the Service Employees International Union. It also estimates that Virginia will pay $25,000 per family for health care by 2016.

According to the panelists last night, affordable and accessible health care is not what is happening today for many Americans. U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, talked about the cost of health coverage in America compared with the rest of the world, alongside statistics that rank the U.S. as having the highest infant-mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy among industrialized nations.

"We're clearly not getting our money's worth," Scott said

Scott said it would cost about $1.5 trillion to finance a comprehensive health-care package, about half the amount of the tax cuts handed out during the Bush administration that are now up for renewal in Congress.

Joseph said instituting a "single-payer" system, under which those who are not insured by an employer or private health coverage could buy into a nonprofit public provider, would answer a lot of the problems faced by patients, and allow providers to focus on prevention and care, not bureaucracy and paperwork.

"Doctors need to be healers," she said. "I did not go to medical school to get an MBA."

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .