Glenn Thompson For Congress 2008, Pennsylvania's 5th District Representative to Congress

Rural Healthcares is a vital piece of our economic engine. The jobs help keep us economically healthy and quality practitioners keep us physically healthy. Many of the hospitals across the district are on a thin line of sustainability. A combination of many factors keeps them playing a constant game of providing quality care to those in need while remaining solvent. Many things need to be addressed to keep our hospitals as a strong backbone for our rural communities.

Improving Medicare payouts for rural providers. The discrepancy between payouts for urban and rural providers is stark and needs to be corrected. Many of the patients in rural hospitals rely on Medicare and Medicaid for their coverage and as our population ages, the contrast will become more apparent. If we do not improve the payout system some of our hospitals run the risk of closing and as transit time increases we add unnecessary cost and risk to patients in need of care.
Lower costs to providers. Our liability systems make physician retention difficult. Our Universities provide some of the finest medical school training in the nation but few of those students remain in Pennsylvania to practice. One of the factors is the burden of malpractice insurance. If we are to retain the best providers then our system must make sense and encourage physician retention.
Extend Rural Health Initiatives to physician practices. Currently there is one physician for every 1,316 residents in rural areas. (Pennsylvania Rural Health Association) In talking with a friend that lives in our district, he told me that he travels to New York City to visit a dermatologist because finding specialist care is so difficult in our area. If we are to attract economic development and improve our region overall this underdevelopment of services must improve.
Universal Health Care is not the answer. A policy that increases the bureaucratic burden on providers and limits the development of the best new technology is not the answer. We can extend healthcare to more folks if we limit some of the unwieldy cost systems that exist in our health practices. We have the best technology, the best doctors and the ability to deliver the care effectively but to do so our systems need to improve.
Maintain Medicare solvency. As our population continues to age and the population paying into Medicare dwindles, we must stop raiding the fund and adding unnecessary costs to the program. Our burden is to provide quality care to our elderly and that must be done in an efficient manner so that the fund does not run out. As our baby boom generation retires the dialogue to improve Medicare must begin immediately.