Bill Roper is a tall, soft-voiced pediatrician, and it's easy to imagine him comforting some child about to get a shot or undergo an exam he doesn't want. Roper is not one, in other words, to get flummoxed by crying or other distractions. Those qualities make him also a good candidate to take a thoughtful look at the recent health care reforms passed by Congress after months and months of intense debate.
But his opinion takes on more gravitas since he also happens to be the CEO of UNC Health Care. The News & Observer's Sarah Avery recently took Roper's pulse on the issue, along with those of several of his colleagues.
The overall prognosis, at least in terms of what this sampling of UNC Health Care folks said, would be positive for President Barack Obama and the Democrats who passed the reform. (Roper did not choose those who were interviewed and other UNC Health supervisors had nothing to do with the selection, either.)
There were some qualifications in their support, and there were some hesitations as well, some of them related to perfectly legitimate concerns about the effect reform could have on health care costs, a conundrum that has yet to be fully solved. Without effective cost controls, the reform plan could collapse under its own weight.
Cost-curbing
Roper, a strong supporter of the president's reform efforts, describes the current system as "almost destined to be expensive," with financial incentives for multiple procedures, while maintaining patients' good health doesn't carry as much of a profit margin. He wants the government to do more to curb costs. But he says it's important to cover the uninsured, as reform will do. (Roper held high health care posts in two Republican presidential administrations, which perhaps gives his support for reform an even further measure of credibility.)
Roper's views as to how the uninsured will benefit are shared by Dr. Charles Cairns, head of the emergency department, who says his unit sees many people with problems that could be controlled with regular visits to a doctor. Instead, without insurance, they wind up getting very expensive care in emergency rooms.
Barbara Freiman, a nurse in the N.C. Children's Hospital, also supports reform because children without insurance sometimes die from asthma, for example, when routine care would save them. "That," she said, "should not happen."
Access to care
The verdict on reform is not unanimous. Nurse Lori Abate says ObamaCare, as it's sometimes called, doesn't cut costs and doesn't address the shortage of doctors, a problem that will worsen with millions more people coming into the insurance system.
A young employee who delivers linens said, "I don't think it's fair if I have to pay for it, but what are you going to do." He's not alone in resisting the idea of government-mandated insurance , although a mandate is necessary to spread risks as insurance companies are required to cover people whom they likely would have shunned. And a part-time transportation worker who's on Medicare thought the process of reform was "crooked."
Overall, though, it's easy to understand why those in the health care trenches would be open to changes that could make care more accessible to people in need of help, the people these caregivers see and serve every day.
The president has not proclaimed health care reform to be a finished crusade, and indeed, Roper thinks there is more to do, though he strongly endorses the strides that have been made. But at least America has taken a step toward ensuring that access to health care becomes more of a guarantee than a hope.
