Healthcare in Ohio
David Laber, Athens NEWS Writer
August 1, 2005
A statewide group is circulating petitions to get a state-sponsored healthcare initiative onto the Ohio ballot for the 2006 November general election, and southeastern Ohio counties are playing an integral role in filling petition requirements.
The Single-Payer Action Network Ohio (SPAN Ohio) has been collecting signatures to overhaul the state's healthcare system, and Southeastern Ohio SPAN has been leading the charge locally.
On Sunday, Warren Haydon and Arlene Sheak, both of Athens, said under the proposed plan, all Ohioans would receive healthcare coverage by cutting back on administrative paperwork that hospitals and insurance companies use and by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Ohioans.
Highlighting some of the points in the proposal, Haydon said all Ohioans will receive hospital care, mental health, vision, hearing, prescription drugs dental, emergency services and more.
Currently, about 1.3 million Ohioans do not have any healthcare insurance for one year, Sheak said, and that number doubles when talking about families that only have healthcare insurance part of the time. About 18,000 Americans will die this year as a result of not having health coverage, she said.
And this is happening locally as well. Haydon said he has increasingly seen fliers about benefits being held for people who need to raise money for health coverage.
And according to a February study, which included research done by an Ohio University professor, about half of the bankrupted families in the country are in their situation as a result of a health problem. "All of us are one accident away from being bankrupted," Sheak said.
Injuries and poor health are not just an economic burden on the uninsured, she said, but it also poses a threat to those with insurance because sometimes the injury is such that the person can no longer work or the spouse has to quit work to care for the other, she said.
"More and more, people are considering providing healthcare for everyone as a moral issue," Haydon said.
The proposal also provides better access for those living in rural areas to procedures and equipment, he said.
A statewide board consisting of 14 members from the seven Ohio health districts (Athens County's district includes a total of 21 counties with Muskingum County being the most populated) would distribute the equipment to make everyone available to that type of equipment within a 20-minute drive "as opposed to giving people in Cleveland three different choices," he said.
Each hospital would receive a monthly check from the state board to cover operating costs, according to the plan.
The plan also would cut back on administrative spending (about $11.6 billion) necessary to bill the hundreds of insurance companies, Sheak said.
According to the plan, statewide healthcare would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthiest Ohioans (6.2 percent for those who earn more than $90,000 per year and 11.2 percent for those who earn more than $200,000 per year).
Businesses also will be asked to contribute to the plan as well, Haydon said.
Employers will pay up to a 3.85 percent payroll tax and up to 3 percent gross receipts tax; however, Haydon said the plan may have to reduce or abandon the receipt tax because it is not likely to be popular with businesses that currently do not offer healthcare to their employees.
Haydon also noted, however, that employers that do offer healthcare benefits do so often at a cost of 12 percent to 15 percent of their payroll.
Haydon said he expects health maintenance organizations (HMOs), insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and possibly the American Medical Association to come out against the plan or anyone who stands to lose financially as a result of a change in the status quo.
To help would-be displaced workers, the proposal includes a section to create a transition advisory group that would provide financial and education assistance for two years.
To get the proposal on the ballot, Haydon said the organization needs to collect about 97,000 signatures (3 percent of the number of 2002 voters), but to account for possibly invalidated signatures, the goal is to collect 140,000. Of those signatures, at least half of the state's counties (44) must have at least 1.5 percent of its 2002 number of voters sign the petition.
The signatures are to be submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office 10 days prior to when the state legislature goes into session in January. Haydon said he does not know if the organization will be able to meet this deadline for 2006 or not.
If they do, then the Ohio Legislature will have 120 days to either do nothing, approve the plan as is, or amend it, he said.
But if it appears the legislators are not receptive to the plan, then the organization needs to collect 97,000 more signatures in 90 days to get the issue on the ballot, he said.
More information about the statewide healthcare plan is available at the organization's Web site, spanohio.org, and specific questions can be directed to the organization via e-mail at seospan@yahoo.com.
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