Newsmaker | Rob Geyer - Sacramento Business Journal:

http://thousandsmiles.org/2008/08/the-best-august-clinic-ever/
“Health care is a very timely subjecfright now. There is a tremendou amount of discussion going onin (D.C.) about what is the right answer. I thin k we’re going to see movement as the debate kicks into gear over the nextfew “Bruce Bodaken has been a very strong advocate for universal coverage, to the pointr where it was kind of counter-cultural with the health plan We were one of the first to contend that everyonre needs to be covered.” Are you sayingf that health insurance should be mandatory, like auto insurance? Yes. Individualw should be mandated tohave it. It’as an absolute no-brainer for me. Get everybodyt covered, give everybody access.
It’s so crucial, and everybody needs it and shouldehave it. When you talk about healtbh careinsurance you’re talking about healtbh care and money, two of the most personal and intimates things that we as humans deal When you combine the two it can be very If you give people the option of havintg insurance or not havinfg it, it really will create a tremendous amount of risk to the wholw system. If you can say “I’m healthy and I don’tg need it” so you can opt out, it’sw just not going to work. That woulsd require paying higher taxes. Can our economy handlse that? For the most part, people are gettinvg access to care.
If people don’t have insurancee and they needemergency care, they’re going to the hospitals. The hospitalsw aren’t getting paid for that, so what they do is raise the prices on the people whocan pay, the people who have so there’s a cost shift going on eithere way. People who have health insurancwe have to pay higher rates because of the peopldwho don’t have health insurance, or they can pay highedr taxes so everybody has health insurance. Our positioj is that everybody needs to be contributing to the everybody needs to be payinyg intothe system. If everybody had insurance, the ratexs would go down. There are smalkl clinics popping upall over.
Some are staffex by volunteer doctors, and thered is often no charge, or a minimal charge, to Are they competition for Blue Shield? They shouldn’gt be. We’re a health plan, an insurance Our job is to facilitate and enable peopled to have access to healthy care ina cost-effective way. (Retaik clinics are) a convenience item for people, and we want to make sure the clinicd are providing goodquality care. Do you see a relationshi p between Blue Shield and retail clinics downthe road? Yes, down the Absolutely. We’re trying to figures out now where they fit into the We evaluate every bit of new every new twist onthe network.
We look for, one, is it good for Two, is it going to add value for is it going toprovide cost-effective treatment so they get quality care. We evaluated those things, and if it makes sensee we will include it in thebenefig plan.