John Kerry - Talks Out About Health Care

Health care policy is on area where I have something of a built in kitchen cabinet- quite literally in my own kitchen. I am very proud that my daughter Vanessa is at Harvard Medical School training to be a doctor. My late father-in-law was a physician in East Africa, one of the toughest but most rewarding places in the world to practice medicine. And partly because of her upbringing, my wife, Teresa, has devoted a lot of her energy, attention, and resources as chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies to developing health care strategies and solutions, especially womens health, environmental health, prescription drug coverage for seniors, and affordable health insurance for all Americans.

So if I ever forgot my promises of health care even for one day, I would be reminded by two of the most important, and the most persuasive people in my life.

I learned a personal in the importance of persistence in obtaining quality health care just a few years ago when I became involved, along with several other members of Massachusetts congressional delegation in a nurses' strike at a hospital in the town of Brokton. The strike was compelling to me because these nurses' demands were primarily focused not on their wages or benefits or their well being, but on the quality of care they felt they owed to their patients.

They were concerned about mandatory overtime. Work that often left them too tired to do their jobs well, and they were concerned about rotation systems that sometimes required nurses to work in units requiring specialized training that they had not received. The strike, called by the Massachusetts Nurses Association as the collective bargaining agent for the 450 nurses at Brockton Hospital, went on for ninety-two days from May 25 to August 24,2001.

Concerned that the stalemate might never be broken, I made a few phone calls to people on both sides of the strike, concluded there might be grounds for agreement, presented a draft proposal to the nurses' union that might serve as a breakthrough, and offered my services to both sides as a mediator. For fourteen hours I shuttled back and forth between hospitals negotiators and nurses' negotiators. At 11 P.M. when everyone was exhausted, I was able to walk into the room with the nurses' team and announce: "I think we have a agreement."

Indeed we had - and the nurses' were able to achieve their main objectives: convincing the hospital to hire more staff and reduce mandatory overtime and inappropriate rotations.

I tell this story not to take credit for ending the Bockton strike- the two parties involved did that- but as a token of the fact that I understand the complexity of health care issues, the high emotions involved in resolving them, and the need for patience and tenacity in forging a consensus. I know that I have those qualities and will use them to the fullest possible extent in forging a national solution to health care crisis.

A study at Institute of Medicine found that between forty-four thousand and ninety-eight thousand Americans die from medical errors each year. The vast majority of death and injuries from such errors were not the fault of the negligent doctors or hospitals but the result of outmoded practices, habits, and systems, such as failure to keep a patients medications straight. Electronic medical records, patient registries, medication-reminder systems, and reporting and analysis of errors could all raise the quality of care while reducing its costs.

When uninsured people who become sick, they often go to the emergency rooms, where they are treated at relatively high expense, especially if the care is routine. If they have money, they pay for the care out of pocket, if they don't, the cost, called uncompensated care, is borne by other patients or by the government. It is estimated that Americans as a whole paid out thirty five billion dollars over uncompensated care in 2001, with federal, state, and local governments responsible for 85% of the total.

One of the biggest contributing factors to the high number of uninsured Americans is that so many of our small business owners just can't afford to provide health insurance for their employees- or even themselves. Small businesses by definition simply don't have purchasing power to get affordable health insurance. And many of them don't have the profit margins to cover their share of the costs even if they could get a decent plan.

I had a personal encounter with the health care system when I underwent surgery for prostate cancer. My father died of this disease, so I knew I was at risk and received annual PSA screenings. The time timing of my diagnosis was problematic, for I had recently announced an exploratory candidacy for president, and in addition to my Senate duties, I was already actively campaigning.

As a U.S. senator I have access to first-class care, and I really didn't worry much about the medical procedure itself. Former senator Bob Dole, who had prostate surgery years earlier, called me up in the hospital and told me I was setting a good example by how calmly I was taking the whole thing. But I know that part of my calm was due simply to the knowledge that I had the best possible care. The surgery was uneventful, and I got through the recovery and back on my feet in a couple of weeks. I had to take quite of bit of pain medicine at first, after trying to keep up with what I was missing on the Senate floor, I joked to a number of visitors that you haven't lived until you've watched C-SPAN on drugs.

But it certainly dawned on me while I was lying in that hospital bed what the whole experience might have been like if I hadn't been a senator and, worse yet, wasn't covered by health insurance. If I were one of those forty million uninsured Americans, would I have been getting the regular PSA screenings that undoubtedly saved my life? And even now If I had discovered the disease before it killed me, would I have made the wisest choice about how to treat the it? These questions bothered me then and they bother me now. And it's no coincidence that my plan that my plan for covering uninsured Americans is based on making sure they have access to the same kind of health insurance members of Congress have.