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lLORIDA CLIPPING SERVICE. INC. P.O. BOX 10278 T7WPA, FL 33679 813/831-0961 20 BRADENTON HERALD AN 47000 SUN 56000 :.; BRADENTONt 08/17/92 Experimenting '•~~~ 1 State's new health care ,scription in test tube rograms will •I'he prescription, insiders and outsid- • says the .p f t ~I t .s• Fidrida Is experimenting with health care: • - ^ The state wants permis- sion now from the federal gov- ernment to control Medicaid spending. ^ Smaii businesses will have more ready access to * heaith insurance policies be- cause of reforms that require in- surance companies to write po- tentially cheaper packages. - ^ For two years, the state is voluntarily esking employers to provide health insurance to all their workers. , ive pa ~en ~ Yti . er3 say, or an uncoopera s d~'crire=alts: The system is too whose. illnesses ultimately will need a bloaied and too rotten at its gtronger doae. COr.@: And yet, in. this presidential election year with voters angrily 'demanding that P ' d t 8 U A k G B111 ON us > r ansas ov. m- resl was JOHN DONNELLY knigAtAdder Newspapers tAn. or someone corral runaway health Florida's not-so-bitter ill for afford- ~e costs, the ambitious Florida initia- P tive is being closely followed from afar. • l~;health care: f . ab 4I Paretiade: the federaI government to think we have a few years to go be- eventualllet it. manage Medicare and ~ore we know whether the Florida experi- eventually . ment is the right one or the wrong one," IViedicaid- dollars. Politely ask companies said Dick Merritt, director of the Inter- to insure•their workers by 1995. And then. governmental Health Policy Project at cleanup its.owa'inner sanctum by consol= George Washington University. )uaLui a;rattZc vt a~exiicava ui~ moth.- HEALTH To A-2 ~4--- TIF'I, 0009035

"We can accomplish our goals in a two-year time I~o„'A.1 _ -4rame only if•the national government gives us ~....~ . the curreht stalemate in~."soflle help."" 1Vashington on health care, policy, ' Rep. Elaine Bloom, D-Miami Beach ie ~ ' h f ~ id " ee ng my atrong , Merritt sa that 'what Floridd does, Minneso= . ----=- - " does; will pro- ' ta• dc';es, Vermont• vide w. ivith signtflcant, data that er to trarisfer the funds. The way can help us build a strong nation- in which health care is delivered al health care program." in North Dakota and in Florida is No one says the states' pro- quite different " grams will be cure-alls. The eys- Further, he said, the states tem is too bloated and too rotten must allow regions to make deci- at its core. sions for themselves. Medical schools turn out too 'Miami is quite different than many expensive specialists, too Tallahassee. If there are an excess few primary-care physicians. Doc- number of hospitals, you can deal tors' groups and hospitals buy too with it better on the regional 1ev- many expensive machines. (In all el. One of the difficulties now is of Canada, there are 21 magnetic that everyone has looked to the resonance imaging machines federal or state governments to [MRIa),. high-powered magnets solve these problems without ask- that` reveal abnormalities in the ing the local communities for body; in Broward County, there. help.." `- are 33.) HospitaV amass book- If all this sounds like it's still keepers. Insurance plans are too in the teat-tube stage, that's true: l often like those flimsy hospita gowns - you think you're cov- ered when you're not. And an.tm= equal distribution of hospitals and doctors leaves rural areas wanting and 'urban centere• - Washington types love to cite Mi- ami as Doctor Glut Central - paying the price. But the states offer hope. One needs only to look north of the border to see why: A generation ago, Canada's federal government borrowed from the best health care initiatives in its provinces to fashion a national plan. Rep. laine ~Bloom, D-Miami Beach, one ~ key players in the state's reforms, points to sev- eral other initiatives: no doctor may charge more than a $2 mark- up on any outside service; a rate cap on radiation therapy; sharply[ . limiting doctors' referrals to clin- ics in which they have a financial interest; and reopening the licens- ing of midwives for prenatal care and delivery. CAN'T DO IT ALONE Still, Bloom acknowledged thati the state can't do it alone: "Wel can accomplish our goals in a' two-year time frame only if the national •t government gives us some help." Dr. Leighton Cluff, 69, of Gainesville would like to see a wholesale shift from the federal government to the states. He is the former president of the Rob- ert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J. - the largest health care philanthropy in the world - and curiently serves as an informal -hdviser to Gov. Law- ton Chiles. ' ' Cluff: "The-federal government and the states must work togeth- how much it costs employers to buy heal~t __ urance or workers. Cotnpanies have earned praise with wellness programs. Compa- nies restrict smoking and dissemi- nate in rma io on stress reduction, exercise, weight loss, cancer and nutrition. Florida Power & Light, for one, hired 'A"nl6Gle mammography unit last year at its headquarters. Tests cost $65; FPL paid $50, each worker spent $15. Some 428 women took the exam, a$27,820 cost to the company. Two women learned they had breast cancer from the tests. In terms of dollars, treatment for early detection of breast cancer costs an average of $18,000; the PRIVATE REFORMS, average cost of late detection is - But Cluff and others point out $80,000. In all, including the time that some reform is well' under it saved for workers, FPL figures way - from the private sector. a savings of $155,030. While health care reform is still a matter of public policy, South STAYING WELL Florida companies are changing But the issue isn't simply dol- out of fiscal necessity: Miami, Hi- lars. The issue is of helping peo- aleah and Hollywood ranked in ple stay well. the Top 10 in a national study of Health Council's Quick: "You 4 l~. . TIFL 0009036 have to think about' inore than just how the reforms save money. You have to think about provid- ing better health care because of Glendon Johnson, president of John Alden Insurance Co., which has 1,200 employees in Miami, re- called meeting a young mother and her three children last March at a company luncheon. The out- ing was for employees who gradu- ated from college with financial help from John Alden. He remembered their conversa- tion distinctly: "Mr. Johnson, I want to thank you for making it possible for me to get my college,,degree," the woman said. "We're glad to do it." "Let me tell you something you probably don't know," the woman continued. "You have literally saved my life." , Johnson blinked. "How did we do that?" "The mammography program showed that I had breast cancer, and when I found out, I had it excised. The doctors told me that the early detection saved my life." Like FPL, the insurance com- pany had arranged mammogra- phy exams. The woman had tears in her eyes. Johnson did, too: "I'll never forget it." 11.1