Published: May 19, 2008 10:54 pm         

Lawmakers open push for universal health care in W.Va.

CHARLESTON — West Virginia jumped out of the starting box Monday en route to a goal line of universal health care for a citizenry beset with an obesity problem that triggers multiple disorders.

And it’s a race that might take at least a year to complete.

Soon after a press conference to announce the initiative, Dr. Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University began divvying up the work for four specific study groups.

Under contract to spearhead the ambitious project, Thorpe teaches health policies at the Atlanta institution and once served as a consultant to the Clinton administration.

“Our goal is pretty simple,” he told a meeting of Select Committee D on Health in the House chamber. “We want to build the best state-of-the-art health care delivery system in the country in this state. We’re seeking ways to improve the health of West Virginians and get the cost of health care down.”

On the positive side, he said, many innovative minds already have begun looking at the crisis.

“But the challenge is to figure out how to initiate that work in a common vision,” Thorpe said.

Senate Health and Human Resources Chairman Roman Prezioso, D-Marion, said the idea is to make health care accessible to all state residents.

“We have joined hands in this somewhat the same way as Seals and Crofts,” House Health Chairman Don Perdue, D-Boone, quipped, “only we’re more like Sears & Roebuck.”

Perdue pointed out upward of 400,000 state residents are uninsured.

“And one of the things we have finally come to recognize is that in this country those uninsured end up costing the system and the rest of us not only a lot of money, but they reduce the overall health picture,” Perdue said.

Perdue said it is apparent that states can no longer sit idly by and hope the federal government will produce a national plan.

“Any meaningful reform we’ve seen with health care has come from the ground up,” he said. “State budget constraints are making us become more out-of-the-box thinkers. With West Virginia, if we pursue this the right way, we can act as a template for what the federal government may want to try to do.”

Prezioso said the newest approach has evolved from the failures of the past to provide a universal health care coverage.

“We’re finally at a junction in West Virginia and realize we can’t move forward unless everyone is working together,” he said.

Perdue pointed out the task force has the backing of a wide swath of business and labor organizations.

“This is without a historical event in the state of West Virginia,” said Kenny Perdue, head of the AFL-CIO in West Virginia and no relation to the House chairman.

“We can stand back and say today that we started an initiative that many states wish they could get to that West Virginia is going to get to.”

Thorpe said the four work groups would focus on chronic conditions, wellness and prevention, administrative simplification, and technology.

“We should see an initial movement on this within a year,” Thorpe told the panel. “That’s a very aggressive time line.”

Afterward, he told reporters that wellness and prevention would become a major thrust of the work ahead.

“It’s got to be,” he said. “Looking at the numbers, West Virginia is off the charts in terms of leveling growth in obesity. That generates more diabetes, more hypertension, and pulmonary disease. If we don’t deal with that, it’s very tough to get the cost of health care down.”

Delegate Margaret Staggers, D-Fayette, an emergency room physician at Beckley Appalachian Regional Hospital, said she hopes to be appointed to one of the four work groups.

“I think we’re getting started,” she said of the new push to enhance health care and make it accessible to all. “I’m excited about it.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com