Health-care reform welcomed by those who serve the needy of Southwest Michigan

From the Kalamazoo Gazette:

The new legislation, by extending health coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans who lack it, would “help people establish a medical home” where they could get comprehensive, preventative care instead of going to the emergency room for minor medical problems, Crawford said.

“They would get the care in the right place in the most effective manner,” she said.
Saith said that because so many Americans don’t have health insurance or are underinsured, the Family Heath Center has seen “a tremendous rise in people with advanced medical conditions. ... They have multi-system diseases at advanced stages and need lots of coordinated care.”

Don Leonard, of Kalamazoo, a 56-year-old patient who was at the Family Health Center on Monday afternoon, said he doesn’t see the legislation having much of an impact on him because he’s already covered by Medicaid.

“But I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who really need it. There’s people who are dying or really sick who don’t have it (health coverage). That’s not right.”

The community in Kalamazoo County is ahead of the curve in offering health insurance options to the uninsured:

In Kalamazoo County, about 3,500 people without health insurance who have a current medical condition have been able to qualify for the Kalamazoo County Health Plan, which gets money from the state and the local United Way, Crawford said.

Under the legislation approved by the House, those people and an undetermined number of others would become insurable with federal funds within 90 days of final passage of the health-care plan, Crawford said. According to an Associated Press report, a high-risk pool would offer this coverage until 2014, when Medicaid would expand significantly.

“There will be more money to cover more people” than the county health plan does, Crawford said. “Adult males are the majority who fall through the gap” now, she added.

Read the Full Article: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/03/health-care_reform_welcomed_by.html