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Reflecting the deep divisions in the country about national health care reform, reactions to Sunday’s vote ranged from “thrilled” to “disappointed” among Memphis health care leaders on Monday.

The House-approved overhaul of the nation’s health care system will cover 32 million additional uninsured Americans at an estimated cost of $940 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill would require most Americans to get coverage by 2014 or pay a fine. Parents will be able to keep their children on their health insurance until they are 26.

Insurance companies would not be able to place lifetime dollar limits on policies, deny those with medical problems or cancel someone’s policy because he or she gets sick.

“(The Tennessee Health Care Campaign) has been working toward this moment for 21 years,” said Tony Garr, executive director of Nashville’s nonprofit health care consumer advocacy group.

Garr said he was “thrilled” with the vote, and said Tennessee congressmen Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and Bart Gordon, D-Murfreesboro, “made history” with their votes in favor of the bill.

But Knoxville’s Dr. Richard J. DePersio, president of the Tennessee Medical Association, called the bill “fiscally irresponsible,” and said that much of his group’s frustration came from the “manner and haste” of the process.

“There was a general degree of resentment physicians here felt over the ‘take it or leave it’ proposition,” DePersio said. “For now, what is done is done. Now, we are the ones who must take the time to prepare and work together to make this reform bill work for patients in Tennessee.”

University of Memphis health care economist Cyril Chang said the bill’s price tag alone means that health care providers on the whole will get more money, the uninsured and uninsurable will get the most benefit from the bill and that all taxpayers will likely have to pay more to support it.

“However, hospitals, physicians and other providers will be asked to work harder and provide more services for more people,” Chang said. “Insurance companies will bear the brunt of the impact, for they have lots of new regulations and rules to comply with.”

Dr. James K. Ensor Jr., internist and president of the Memphis Medical Society, said Congress has made “a very expensive gamble by taking over one-sixth” of the American economy. He said the new government-run health care system will continue to cost more as time goes on and compared the move to The Pyramid project.

“I have a feeling we’re in for increasingly rough weather,” Ensor said.

Marvin Stockwell, spokesman for the Church Health Center, said the bill’s passage won’t change anything immediately for the Memphis clinic for the working uninsured.

“Of course, we welcome anything that helps more people have access to health care, but the Church Health Center’s mission and work continues,” Stockwell said.

“It is worth noting that what will come to pass will take a good four years to be implemented, so nothing, absolutely nothing, will change for us in the short term.”

– Toby Sells: 529-2742

Health care in Tennessee (2008)

Uninsured: 907,100, or 14 percent of all Tennesseans

Employer-insured: 2.9 million, or 47.5 percent of all Tennesseans

On Medicare and Medicaid: 1.8 million, or 30.2 percent of all Tennesseans

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

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