Kaine talks healthcare in Hampton visit
Sometimes, senators come to town to campaign; sometimes, as with Sen. Tim Kaine’s stop Saturday at a healthcare forum at Hampton’s Zion Baptist Church, just to listen.
One key thing he heard, he said later, was that folks in town, like those calling his D.C. office these days, are feeling more positive than not about the Affordable Care Act.
But one other key thing he heard Saturday was that there may be a problem when people with insurance leave their jobs to start their own businesses.
One Hampton woman told him she was worried she'd missed the sign-up period for buying coverage through healthcare.gov when she took the plunge to start a business.
That’s not the way Obamacare is supposed to work, and Kaine said he wants to check and see if there’s a basic communications problem, or if there are procedural changes that are needed, or whether his constituent is suffering from a one-off glitch that his staff can help sort out.
In response to another question, Kaine said he's very worried that the flow of money out from the Treasury to pay for Medicare exceeds the flow of money coming in from the payroll taxes people pay for the program.
He said later than one key to staunching that outflow is to shift the way Medicare pays for services. Currently, Medicare pays for services rendered -- and that can encourage doctors and hospitals to provide a lot of services that may not always be needed.
Kaine said he'd like to see a move towards an approach the Affordable Care Act is moving towards: paying on the basis of how effectively treatment addresses individuals' health.
He said payment on the basis of outcomes is the pattern in many other countries, and could have a bigger impact that the kind of changes in eligibility or benefits that some in Washington have proposed to reform the system.
He said he was surprised not to hear questions about the V.A. health system, adding that he's hoping that legislation now pending will address problems with excessively long waiting lists.
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