Minnesota Labor Party Advocates Health Care Reform

By Julianne LaJeunesse, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

The Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s Donna Cassutt, Dr. Mark Liebows of the Mayo Clinic and registered nurse Glenda Cartney spoke Wednesday about what Cassut called an “unsustainable” health care system.

Cassutt is DFL’s party associate chair and said that even though the U.S. Census Bureau ranks Minnesota third in the nation for those with health care insurance, Minnesotans shouldn’t be comforted.

“We still have more than eight percent without coverage, and while we may be doing better than other states, for those families that have no coverage or are struggling to make ends meet with skyrocketing health care costs, or dealing with insurance companies that are only looking out for their bottom line, that ranking doesn’t mean a whole lot to them… and it shouldn’t mean a whole lot to us with coverage as well,” Cassutt said.

Glenda Cartney, who is a critical care nurse at Allina Health System, said she works with those people who are uninsured, or whose insurance plans don’t cover all of their medical needs and that she has to deal with the effects of insurance gaps.

“I came into nursing to care for patients, to heal. I just feel that the current system is just preventing me from doing so,” Cartney said. “I don’t get it. I just think we have to do something. That it cannot wait any longer.”

Cartney said the system she works in is devastating to patients and their families and agreed with Dr. Liebow, saying fundamental changes must begin in patient care and patient-doctor relationships, better known as the health care delivery system.

Liebow said he hopes that health care reform will mean: insuring the uninsured, changing the health insurance market, and bettering the delivery system.

Liebow said that changing the insurance market would mean that insurers wouldn’t be able to “play games” that allow them to discriminate based on preexisting conditions and rescissions to contracts.

Opponents of major health care reform say reform proposals like H.R. 3200 are too expensive, are an example of an increasing government role in Americans’ lives and could limit health care access through increased numbers of insured people.