From the Roundtable: Health care reform has huge impact on Columbia, however it turns out

The debate rages about health care reform, and I am confused.

From the Left, the Right, the Middle and perhaps some mysterious kingdom out yonder comes the debate, polemics, shouting, anger, rage and downright orneriness that fuel the talkers and writers and the exponentially expanding blogosphere. It’s time to pause for a reasonable discussion about what the various “reforms” touted from all corners may mean for the Greater Columbia area’s health care industry.

What do we know about the dimensions of this burgeoning economic engine? Both University Hospital and Boone Hospital Center are undergoing massive physical expansions, and Landmark Hospital’s acute care center will open soon. The number of hospital beds already is large for a community this size (338 at BHC and 566 at University Hospital), as is the square footage under roof devoted to health care and allied fields, the total number of health care workers (7,721 at BHC and University Hospital), the annual payroll represented by those workers, and the total annual financial turnover in dollars that passes through all these enterprises.

As a start, these impressive developments and statistics surely propel Columbia into a top-10 list of metropolitan areas offering a comprehensive range of medical and health care programs and facilities. (A shout out, by the way, goes to University Hospital for recently garnering accreditation as Missouri’s second Level One Trauma facility serving some 88 counties.)

While it’s a given that changes to this country’s entire medical establishment will sooner or later occur, every one of us has reason to be on notice for what Congress and the Administration may end up doing. It’s a given that some form of federally subsidized health care – extremists on the Right mark it a step toward “socialism” – will eventually reach Columbia.

Almost from the moment Social Security arrived in 1935, various proposals have been put forth to extend that program into health care. Those efforts led, for example, to the introduction of Medicare 30 years later. Private sector initiatives often termed “pennies-a-day” cooperative group hospital plans emerged before World War II, and, with tens of millions of adherents today, the overall level of satisfaction in that private sector appears to be holding.

Medical care costs money. While there will always be glaring examples of waste and fraud within the system, those who wax on with anecdotes of $5-a-night hospital stays or $50 procedures are naïve when it comes to the enormous advances that have surged through the various healing arts derived from ongoing research and the non-stop explosion of exciting technological developments.

Whatever Congress chooses to do could turn into an upheaval for the medical industry the Greater Columbia area has so carefully chosen to nurture, which has been our good fortune to retain and advance. Upwards of tens of millions of dollars have already been committed – either already in progress or soon to be bid – for the next level of brick and mortar facilities. With that will come more jobs and an even greater level of importance as one of Columbia’s major economic drivers.

“To pay attention” is one of my old mottos, and it’s not too soon for all of us to stay well tuned to whatever Congress and the President end up doing because health care and its economic impact is of transcendent importance to each and every one of us around here.