Article on the status of healthcare reform in Ohio

The following article from the Cincinnati Enquirer details the various forces at play in the fight for universal healthcare -- politicians, small business, insurance companies, consumer advocates. So far, despite almost one million residents without coverage, they're at a stalemate. The Single Payer Action Network is trying to put a binding referendum on the ballot in 2007 to send the pols a message about how the public wants to solve the crisis.

Ohio health care needs fix
But too many varied concerns in way of insurance solution
BY KATHY BERGSTROM ENQUIRER CONTRIBUTOR

COLUMBUS - Few legislators expect the Ohio General Assembly this year to pass the kind of major health care reforms that Massachusetts enacted last month.

That's because while members of both parties, as well as lobbyists for business and consumers, see the need for change in Ohio, there are fundamental disagreements on how to improve health care here. ...

"One of the things going for us is the existing system is collapsing," said Dr. Donald Rucknagel of Cincinnati, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati and at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Rucknagel is regional coordinator for the Single Payer Action Network Ohio group, which is working toward getting a measure to create a single-payer universal health care system on the Ohio ballot in 2007. The system would create a single fund to pay for health care and would be paid for by three different taxes. ...

The current legislature may engage in "tweaking around the edges and taking a couple of shots at some interesting ideas," said House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Driehaus, a Cincinnati Democrat. "We're not talking about health care reform the way the state of Massachusetts has talked about health care reform."

Legislators in Ohio fail to see the big picture or the crisis when they talk about health care reform, he said. No one is challenging employer-based health care, Driehaus said, and no one is standing up for those without health insurance - 11.8 percent of the state's population, or roughly 970,000 people in 2004, according to the most recent Census Bureau estimate.

More states will try to take action because of the lack of leadership at the federal level, Driehaus predicted. But Ohio is not there yet, he said. ...

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