Solving problems requires focus on fixes: Opposition to health care law in Georgia and elsewhere won’t help the 1 in 5 Georgians who lack insurance
By Donna Looper
In the early days of our nation’s history, the Founding Fathers wrote a constitution and created a system of government with limited powers. The poor would be cared for by charities or religious organizations — groups established as safety nets for those in need.
It is only with the vast expansion of federal and state governments during the last 50 years that we have seen a crowding out of the role of charities — from good works that nonprofits do from housing and feeding the poor to volunteer physicians and nurses who give medical care to the sick.
As Americans continue to debate the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid in the states, policymakers and citizens should remember there is a partner available to help care for Georgia’s poor and uninsured: the state’s more than 100 charity care clinics.
Staffed with volunteer physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and other health care personnel, these charity clinics help these patients manage chronic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, asthma and other illnesses so patients don’t wind up in emergency rooms and cost taxpayers more money.
Health care professionals volunteer their time because they want to heal the sick and have a sense of compassion, no matter what the financial status of patients. It is because of that sense of giving that Georgia has more charity health clinics than any state in the nation.
Several of the state’s charity clinics also have dental clinics on site. Some are faith-based, while others are secular. They are a great example of communities taking care of their own.
Last year, Georgia’s charity clinics treated about 323,000 adults from rural, high-unemployment areas to urban centers, including Macon, Augusta and Atlanta.
According to the Georgia State Auditor, these clinics provide $200 million in care while reaching 16 percent of the state’s uninsured population.
And charity clinics can fill another need. They will continue to provide access to health care as more and more physicians refuse to accept Medicaid as a form of payment. A recent study by the Mongan Institute for Health found that 28 percent of primary care physicians who treat Medicaid patients no longer accept new patients with Medicaid cards.
But charity care continues to be available — and in demand — to those who can’t receive care elsewhere.
For example, the Good Shepherd Clinic in Morrow, like almost all charity clinics, is popular and has a long waiting list due to high unemployment and few adults in its community with health insurance. Like many of Georgia’s charity clinics, Good Shepherd does not charge eligible patients. Charity clinics that do charge patients have a sliding-scale fee.
Good ideas never go out of style. Policymakers need to consider lending a hand to charity health care providers. Neighbors step up to aid neighbors when given the opportunity. If charity health care worked when our nation was in its infancy, it certainly can be part of the solution for a country facing potential bankruptcy over health care entitlements.
Donna Looper is executive director of the Georgia Charitable Care Network.
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21 comments Add your comment
Halftrack
December 9th, 2012
4:52 pm
No Law should be passed without adequate time to read the bill. Also States should not be accountable for costs without the Bill specifying how it is to be funded. Go figure – - -? ? ?
bill copeland
December 9th, 2012
10:40 pm
federal programs entered because the charitable system collapsed in the early ’30’s. and many private charitable programs today depend on federal, state, and local government funding, e.g., title xx social services, child care supports, etc.
Star Falcon
December 10th, 2012
6:13 am
Per Chief Justice John Roberts, Obama Care is the law of the land. Speaking of the states, how about the state of Georgia helping the residents of Fulton and DeKalb counties pay the bills at Grady, since the non-insured come from all parts of Georgia to be treated.
middle of the road
December 10th, 2012
6:45 am
“how about the state of Georgia helping the residents of Fulton and DeKalb counties pay the bills at Grady, since the non-insured come from all parts of Georgia to be treated.”
Really? I don’t think so. What I see is that people come from outside of Fulton and Dekalb Counties WITH insurance and their insurance companies get ripped off to help pay for Atlanta’s indigent population.
It is nice to be a charity hospital, but someone has to pay for those services. If you are a charity hospital, you better have donors lined up to pay for the charity.
middle of the road
December 10th, 2012
6:47 am
By the way, I guess the editors of the AJC have not figured out that they reposted the last article under a new title and forgot to post the new article. Let’s see how long before they notice.
Reality
December 10th, 2012
8:00 am
@Halftrack,
The proposed Healthcare Reform Act was posted on the federal web site for ALL to read many weeks before any vote in Congress.
Why don’t YOU stop being a ditto-head and get your head OUT of the republican talking points on FOX news and learn the truth?
It has now been about a year since it has passed. I’m wondering…. have YOU even read it yet? And, I mean have YOU read it – not have you listened to FOX news slander it! My guess is no, you have not.
However, you feel the expert enough to form an opinion???? You are just like all of the other idiot conservative republicans in Georgia!
commoncents
December 10th, 2012
8:28 am
reality- Given your comment, I’m assuming you actually read the whole bill, before it was passed? All ~1,000 pages? Many senators admitted to not reading thewhole bill before voting…. just saying
The Privateer
December 10th, 2012
8:46 am
@ Reality
Your logon is a misnomer. Typical liberal that has nothing to add to a discussion but just resorts to name calling and the usual hysterical comments about FOX News. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is neither affordable nor will it increase care or make care better. Example, beginning on Jan 1, 2013 anyone making more than $200,000 a year will pay and additional payroll tax in the amount of $6500 to fund Obamacare. Beginning in 2013 a panel of bureaucrats, not physicians, will make decisions on what type of medical treatment you will receive based solely on FINANCIAL data using an outcomes/cost model. This means that if a woman gets a type of breast cancer that typically has a positive treatment outcome for a small percentage of patients, the panel will deem that treatment too costly for too few positive outcomes and it will be denied. So the 10% of the women that the treatment could have helped are condemned to death. It is already the law in Canada.
Tman
December 10th, 2012
9:43 am
“Solving problems requires focus on fixes”? No, solving problems requires focus on what the problem actually is. WHY do one in five Georgians lack insurance should be the focus. What would make it possible for these people to get insurance? How can this problem be addressed without unduly affecting the entire state (or nation)?
Star Falcon
December 10th, 2012
10:21 am
President Obama is right and he has over 330 Electoral votes and a Supreme Court decision that emphatically sustains his position. The exchanges (soon to be public option) will work find. I see one of the politicians who drew a line in the sand; Jim DeMint has already abandoned the ship. I don’t blame him it is sinking fast. Obama Care will survive these self-serving politicians. Personally as a retiree, I will continue working with other independent people, for the best interests of “The American People”.
yuzeyurbrane
December 10th, 2012
10:23 am
Excuse me!! 100 charity clinics with wellmeaning doctors who volunteer maybe once a month will take care of the poor! The writer did not do her math, 20% of Georgians is about 2 million people. If the charity clinics are so effective why are so many not receiving health care when they need it? After all, as she points out, we have tried it their way since the beginnings of the country.
Lt Dan
December 10th, 2012
11:15 am
Can anyone explain how healthcare is a responsiblity of the government and not the individual?
History shows that anything the government gets involved in becomes more expensive and in general screwed up due to government’s incompetence.
I personally believe there is no right to health care and that the free market offers the best solutions.
A step in the right direction would be to allow healthcare policies to be sold\administered across state lines so that there is more competition.
just me
December 10th, 2012
11:33 am
Hey yuzeyurbrane,
The article stated that these clinic serve about 16% of this state’s uninsured population. Use YOUR brain!
WHY
December 10th, 2012
11:44 am
Why should I help someone who did not take the proper step to take care of themselves ? Is it possible for me to get the free healthcare also ?
yuzeyurbrane
December 10th, 2012
2:33 pm
just me–read it yourself–”reaching 16%”. Nice term of art. Does that mean providing quality affordable healthcare. No. Now, what they do helps but mainly it is a placebo for folks like you who delude themselves into thinking everything is hunky-dory. It is like watching the tv action news teams shame a crook into returning some victim’s money—feel good. Everything bad is taken care of by the news team.
too little time
December 10th, 2012
2:35 pm
Serious question: Do we even have enough doctors in the State of GA to support another 2 million Georgians?
williebkind
December 10th, 2012
2:39 pm
Remember you get FREE STUFF–like healthcare. So go jump out of planes, ski down mountains, smoke, take drugs, and have as many babies as your body will take.
meno
December 10th, 2012
3:29 pm
Funny how no one complains about the “free” health care people get by going to the emergency room and not paying. However, somehow trying to deal with that situation means we are allowing our society to become one of moochers.
indigo
December 11th, 2012
8:58 am
Georgia Republican politicians have made it clear that the health concerns of those who lack insurance are the last thing they care anything about.
Keeping their fundamentalist electorate happy with lies about how bad the Government is keeps them in office.
Nothing else matters.
just me
December 11th, 2012
11:48 am
yuzeyurbrane,
I stand corrected. You are using your brain to the best of your ability. It just isn’t very good.
Oklahoma doctors
December 11th, 2012
5:52 pm
Americans continue to debate the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid in the states, policymakers and citizens should remember there is a partner available to help care for Georgia’s poor and uninsured: