ROSS: Play the long game in tackling health care costs

In case you didn’t know, health care is a commodity in America. It’s not a right until you turn 65. When you treat health care as a free-market business, then what is happening today in our health care system makes sense. But it puts a nurse in Indiana in a weird position.

Nursing has been one of the most trusted professions for 20 years in a row. It’s an easy title to grab when you never ask patients for money and spend the most time listening to them. We are educated and trained to make a difference in patients’ lives. Then, we arrive in our places of work to learn we are there to make sure our employers can maximize reimbursement from insurance companies.

As nurses, we hear the stories of our patients going bankrupt to get needed medical care and we see daily what happens when Hoosiers put off their health needs due to fear of costs. So, I applaud the discussion around costs that happened in our General Assembly this legislative session. But before elected officials start pointing fingers and making policy decisions that will tip the delicate balance of cost, access and quality, we need to have an honest discussion about the future role of government in Hoosiers’ lives.

Government is the only permanent thing in our lives. Motivated by the goal of getting re-elected, our representatives make a long-game investment in the state’s people. There are no boards or shareholders to please, so there are no quarterly profits to pursue. Yet we continue to put health care costs on the shoulders of our employers, who do answer to boards and shareholders. As we become a transient society and shift to a gig economy, employers see our health as a cost to manage quarter to quarter and not over a lifetime.

Meanwhile, our state’s ability to attract and keep employers is thwarted by the fact that Indiana ranks in the bottom 10 in health indicators. We also consistently rank at or near the bottom when it comes to how we support our aging, disabled and working caregivers.

Making progress on these fronts requires a long-game mentality, yet none of the big discussions in our Legislature reflect that. The discussions happening today would merely take the cost of health care off one plate—that of payor, patient or provider—and put it on another. Each time we do this, there are ramifications for quality and access. The reality is, there are no shortcuts to reducing costs.

We need our elected officials thinking about policies that invest in the health of Hoosiers in the long term. We need policies that invest in the education and development of a future health care workforce to support the current and future health needs of Hoosiers.

Lastly, we need to address the looming fact that we are about to have more people over 65 than under 18 for the first time in our nation’s history. We need every person watching and ready to vote to make sure we get representatives willing to work on the long game of our health in Indiana.•

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Ross is a nurse, a small-business owner and a member of the Indiana State Nurses Association Political Action Committee.