Published: December 16, 2007 10:49 pm         

Chamber wants action in legislative session on health care, legal reforms

CHARLESTON — What gobbles up nearly one-fourth of all costs associated with providing health care in America?

If your answer was paperwork, move to the head of the class.

For that reason, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce is pitching for an electronic record-keeping system to eliminate all the paper shuffling that not only slows down matters when hospitals, physicians, patients, pharmaceuticals and insurance firms communicate with one another, but jack up the costs in the process.

“Most people wouldn’t even think about this, but just the paperwork that goes along with our health care system adds an enormous amount of costs,” says Steve Roberts, president of the state chamber.

“So developing an electronic health records system can be done on a state-by-state level that can be a big help. There are some estimates out there that indicate as much as 20 to 25 percent of health costs could be shaved this way.”

Roberts says the health care issue has developed into a major problem for struggling small businesses, which make up the backbone of West Virginia’s economy.

“Big businesses are seeing their costs just skyrocket,” he said. “Small businesses are having more and more trouble just affording any kind of health care coverage.”

Another avenue of help is to devote more education dollars to specific health care training, the chamber leader says.

Jobs are going begging for physician assistants and nurses, while West Virginia is battling a shortage of doctors, Roberts says.

“Most of our counties in West Virginia are classified as medically underserved. That means they simply don’t have enough doctors and nurses in the great majority of our counties.”

Yet, he emphasized, it’s not fair to say the three medical schools have fallen down on the job. Rather, he says, more emphasis is needed in medical training at the secondary level so future college students are aware of opportunities in that field. Secondly, institutions of higher learning need a helping hand so more campuses offer programs in the medical arena.

“We’ve got a lot of kids who have the aptitude but they don’t get accepted because there’s simply just not room for them,” Roberts said.

And, in turn, this old law of supply and demand figures into the higher medical costs that are putting a strain on the business community, he said.

“When you and I were growing up, everybody was saying the baby boomers are going to go on forever — we’re going to need school teachers forever.

“Now we have an excess of school teachers. We’ve had an excess of school teachers probably 10 or 12 years, maybe longer, except in a very few fields.”

That brought Roberts to the matter of a teacher pay raise. He said any salary improvements must be tempered with available tax dollars and considered with benefits and the cost-of-living differences between West Virginia and expensive places to live elsewhere.

“We believe that when you add our benefits that West Virginia teachers are paid probably better than they think they are, that the benefit costs are very significant, and that we have to be partners.

“Again, we’re not trying to be adversarial. We have to be partners with education and educators in figuring out how we can grow this state’s economy so we can afford to do the things that we all want to do.”

Already, in an election year ahead, the West Virginia Education Association is pressuring lawmakers to move the average starting salary from $29,114 to $35,000, and to install a method of maintaining the pay scale so it mirrors the national average. To get there, the Legislature would have to approve an 8 percent boost over each of the next three years.

“The teachers unions are going to feel like they’re not doing their job if they’re not out there pounding on the table for pay raises,” Roberts said.

“But the truth is, and we need to have a lot of light shed on this, when you add the benefits in, we already have a very costly structure. If we’re going to be in a position to give pay raises, we need to grow this economy. We need educators to be partners with us in growing this economy.”

Business leaders once more are looking to the Legislature for relief in the civil justice system, saying it puts them at a disadvantage with other states in competing for investors.

Roberts didn’t comment when reminded of an earlier mantra critics have applied to West Virginia as “a judicial hellhole,” but said legal reforms remain a matter “very, very high” on the list of things to do for the business community.

“Employers tell us they do believe that they accept significant risks by being in business in West Virginia,” he said.

“They have the risks associated with being sued. They have the risks associated with defending themselves. They have the risks associated with having to settle lawsuits rather than bearing the expense of going all the way through a trial. They’re not wrong about this.”

In fact, he said, a study performed by the Public Policy Institute of New York found that West Virginia’s court costs are the highest in the land on a per capita basis.

“Unfortunately, we still have a problem. And we need to be realistic. We’re not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Rather, he said, West Virginia lawmakers need to see how surrounding states such as Ohio and Virginia have penned reforms into their state codes.

A major dust-up is looming over the asbestos issue.

Employers tell the chamber they are either facing suit or being threatened with one. On the other side of the coin, trial lawyers are concerned that victims of asbestos exposure might get shortchanged in court.

“I talked to an employer ... who has been sued because it’s alleged their company sold a product that may have had asbestos in it in the 1950s,” Roberts said.

“The cost of insurance and defending these suits just simply make West Virginia a difficult place to do business for the very companies that we most want to attract here. This is not an issue for the McDonald’s kind of companies. This is an issue for the kind of companies that pay the wages that everybody wants. The reason the chamber is interested in this is, we’re hearing from the businesses who have the kind of jobs that everybody wants.”

A leftover Senate bill that came up for debate in November interims would impose requirements for proving a person has been exposed and had an X-ray read by a bona fide physician who is providing treatment.

“That would speed payments for people who are legitimately injured and ill,” Roberts said. “And it would tend to weed out people who are just thinking, well, if I sign on to this, I might get something.”

Roberts drew an analogy with the old workers’ compensation system that allowed monetary payments without one degree of impairment.

“That’s not to say there aren’t people out there who deserved their workers’ compensation payment,” he said. “And when they deserve it, they should get it and they should get it quickly. The same with asbestos. If they’ve been exposed and they are sick, or have a reasonable chance at getting sick because they have lung impairment, then we need ways to take care of those people and they shouldn’t have to sue anybody to get help.”

Environmental reforms are needed so companies needn’t pass through a myriad of regulatory tape to get a permit.

Roberts says the chamber is also paying attention to any move to regulate water resources, making sure nothing is done in haste that the state might come to regret.

“Let’s not do anything until we understand what we’re doing,” he said. “Then, when we know what we’re doing, let’s do it right.”

The chamber remains in strong opposition to the so-called bottle bill, which would impose a 10-cent, refundable deposit on all beverage containers as a means of discouraging consumers from littering highways with them. For the past seven legislative sessions, such legislation has failed to get to first base, but the West Virginia Citizen Action Group plans to try again in January.

“It’s been an ugly one for us,” Roberts said. “We think it’s simply a poor concept.

“From our point of view, we want to do everything we can to clear away the litter problem. But we don’t think the bottle bill accomplishes this. What it might result in are just piles of glass and plastic that nobody knows what to do with. We’d be all for exploring what a better approach would be.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com