Rx for health care.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Correcting the many deficiencies of America's health care system is a topic uniquely unsuited to sound bites. If reforms were simple, they'd already have been adopted. Yet the health care system is failing so many people in so many ways that change will have to come soon, and plans for restructuring are proliferating at the local, state and national levels. How can ordinary people understand such a complex problem and evaluate proposed solutions?

Frank Turner, a retired Eugene physician, has been concerned with that question for some time. Part of the answer appears on the opposite page: The first in a series of columns exploring health care policy.

A column will appear every other Monday, each written by someone with expertise or experience in some aspect of the health care system. Turner has lined up contributions from people who can write knowledgeably from the perspective of hospital administrators, the uninsured, business, health care providers and more. Others are invited to contribute their ideas by contacting Turner at 334-1760 or at turners@rio .com, or editorial page editor Jackman Wilson at 338-2316 or [e-mail].

Turner is well-suited to act as the organizer of the series. He's been organizing discussions of health care issues for some time - first as part of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group, a nationwide dialogue established by Congress in 2003 under the Medicare Improvement Act, and currently as a chapter facilitator for former Gov. John Kitzhaber's Archimedes Project. The governor's project is aimed at gathering ideas and support for a statewide health care reform plan.

The costs and inefficiencies of the health care system have grown for both Oregon and the nation as a whole. In 2004 health care costs amounted to $1.8 trillion, consuming 14 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Oregon's health care bill came to $17.5 billion - more than the cost of state government. Health care expenses account for the equivalent of 100 percent of Americans' earnings in the entire months of January and February - $6,400 per capita.

And the bill is rising. Health care costs rose an average of 8.7 percent between 1980 and 2004. In 1960, health care consumed 5 cents of every dollar produced by the American economy - about the same share as went for education. Health care's share has tripled, leaving less for all other expenses. At the current rate of growth, health care expenses will consume 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product by 2015.

While Americans are paying more for health care, many are getting less. The number of uninsured has grown to 47 million, including 600,000 Oregonians. The cost of health insurance is an increasingly heavy burden upon the shrinking number of employers that provide it - 64 percent of Americans had health care coverage through their employers in 1999, a percentage that fell to 60 percent in 2004. Last year, employers' health insurance premiums rose by an average of 7.7 percent, double the rate of inflation, with even higher increases for the smallest employers.

At the same time, medical science is being revolutionized by advances in pharmacology, genetics, imaging and other fields - indeed, some of these advances are driving costs higher. And a demographic wave is about to sweep over the health care system, as aging baby boomers reach the age at which they become heavy consumers of medical services.

All this is too much to be dissected in a single editorial or column. A series such as the one that begins today, however, can aspire to shed some light on the subject. Each installment can have value on its own, and together they can form a mosaic that will help readers understand the health-care debates taking place in Lane County, Salem and Washington, D.C.