The South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association (SFHHA) held its annual meeting December 11 from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Hotel in Plantation.
More than 250 guests, representing healthcare facilities and the medical societies in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties, attended the event. “It was, by far, the largest turnout weve ever had, ” says SFHHA President Linda Quick.
C. Kennon Hetlage, immediate past chair of SFHHAs executive committee, opened the program by welcoming the guests and thanking Baptist Health, Memorial Hospital West, the University of Miami, and Allied Mobile X-Ray & Ultrasound for sponsoring the event.
Rick Pollack Executive Vice President, American Hospital Association
Before dinner, Richard Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association (AHA), gave the keynote address. Pollacks presentation, entitled “The View from the Beltway,” looked at health care from three perspectives in our nations capital: the current political environment, strategies for reform, and the advocacy agenda for 2009.
Obamas election was not only “historic”, but “unprecedented” in its grassroots organization, said Pollack. The new Administration “will reinvent the relationship between the president and the American people in a way we probably havent seen since FDRs use of radio in the 1930s,” stated Pollack, quoting an observation by Simon Rosenberg, president of the NDN. The pressing question is, How will the citizenry move the presidents agenda?
Labor issues, from staffing ratios to mandatory overtime, will be impacted by who finally rules Congress, Pollack noted. (At the time, several Senate seats were still undecided.) One of the most politically charged items is the Employee Free Choice Act. The AHA opposes this “card check” legislation because it would change the current union election system, where employees cast their ballots in private, free from the interference or influence of employers or union representatives.
(l-r) Linda Quick, Stanley Arkin, Board Member Honoree, and Ken Hetlage.
Regarding health care reform, Pollack said that past efforts have taught us to keep the process “simple, bipartisan, and moving in incremental steps toward major change.” Obamas plan, and the emerging concensus, includes making SCHIP available to all children who need it, expanding Medicaid, providing tax credits to small employers, and instituting federal reinsurance to cover catastrophic expenses in employer plans. Beyond coverage, matters such as wellness and prevention, information technology, transparency, pay for performance, disease management, and biomedical research must also be addressed.
On the logistics of health care reform, Pollack focused on financing. Funding challenges range from the timing of reallocating system savings and finding sources of “new money,” to the scoring limitations of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO strategies have greatly shifted costs from the government to consumers and employers, due to underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid.
(l-r) Linda Quick, Heather Rohan, Kevin Tynan, Board Member Honoree, and Ken Hetlage.
The health care communitys response to the challenges must be fourfold, said Pollack. “We must fight against further budget cuts, discuss the national priorities and ask if deficits really matter, push to change CBO scoring methods, and support efforts to raise revenue.”
On the advocacy agenda for 2009, priorities for hospitals span the Medicaid FMAP increase, pension funding flexibility, preventing regulations on Medicaid outpatient and capital IME costs, health care for the unemployed, physician self-referral, and capital and credit assistance.
Technology is also a key issue,” said Pollack. “President-elect Obama believes that spurring the use of health IT, through electronic billing and medical records systems, will help to create jobs and improve our health care systems overall.”
Other highlights of the annual meeting included the installation of officers for 2009, and a special salute to Stanley Arkin, chairman of the board of Bascom Palmers Anne Bates Leach Eye Hospital, and Kevin Tynan, chair of the board of commissioners for the South Broward Hospital District.
Arkin and Tynan were named “board members of the year,” a new honor established by the SFHHA to recognize outstanding volunteer leaders in the community. Both men were cited for their generous sharing of time and talent, and for their passionate commitment to the individuals and institutions they serve.
The meeting closed with comments from Heather Rohan, new chair of the SFHHA board. “An association is only as good as its members,” affirmed Rohan, adding that “what you give is what youll gain.” She called on members to get involved in issues and join committees, noting that “what we do (as healthcare professionals) is predicated on hope. Quoting the late actor Christopher Reeve, Rohan said, “When you choose hope, all things are possible, so let us choose hope in 2009.”
