Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 2, 1993 TAG: 9312030406
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
``One of the misconceptions we face is that health reform is just getting started,'' W. Hudson Connery said Tuesday night at the annual Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce membership meeting and banquet at New River Community College. ``It really started 100 years ago, and it focuses around three interrelated issues ... cost, quality and access.''
Quality of care was the main focus a century ago, but the other two factors have taken center stage today, he said.
Connery is senior vice president and chief executive officer of the national corporation that includes Pulaski Community and Montgomery Regional Hospitals.
He said HealthTrust has started a wellness program for its own employees, including weight-reduction and smoking-cessation programs. Those who do not participate pay an extra $35 a month for health care. There are similar penalties for those involved in vehicle accidents who were not wearing seat belts.
These incentives are part of an innovative program that HealthTrust can continue, because its employees number more than 50,000. Connery said the national health-reform program could squeeze out a lot of ingenuity and innovation started during the past three years by firms with fewer employees, which will not be able to keep their own programs.
The 1,300-page Clinton plan is still being studied but Connery said it will force the public to balance such issues as patient choice with guaranteed coverage, whether payments to providers should still include subsidies for medical research and education, and whether health-care costs will become, in effect, a tax on business or something that business manages within governmental guidelines.
``These are the fundamental choices that, as a society, we have to face going forward,'' he said. ``You're basically talking about how this country is going to organize one-seventh of the economy for many years to come.''
During the dinner, Pulaski County Administrator Joe Morgan was named winner of the 1993 Southwest Times Civic Honors Award, making the county administrative staff winner of half the major civic awards for the year. Gena Hanks, executive secretary in Morgan's office, won the 1993 Chamber Excellence Award.
The same Pulaski law firm collected the other half. Robert Ingram, named the 1993 Business Executive of the Year, and Philip Sadler, who got a special chamber award for his civic work over the years, had each been enticed to the banquet by being told of the award to the other law firm member.
by CNB