Published: December 30, 2008 08:20 am      

Health care forums help gather grass-roots input

Obama transition team seeks communities’ ideas

CUMBERLAND — Stephen Sniderman makes a decent living as a rabbi, at least until you factor in the doctors’ bills.

“My mortgage payment is minuscule compared to my health care costs and my insurance costs,” said Sniderman, who shared his frustrations Monday during a community forum commissioned by President-elect Barrack Obama’s transition team.

“The copays, the deductibles,” said Sniderman, rabbi of Cumberland’s B’er Chayim Temple. “The fact that it will cover up to $500 a year in prescriptions per person in the family, and that sometimes we’re over that each month ... I came here to sound off.”

About 20 other concerned citizens joined Sniderman for the 90-minute forum on health care reform, which Obama’s transition team has asked communities across the country to host.

Input gathered at the forums is to be used to help formulate solutions at the national level, said physician Wayne Spiggle, who facilitated Monday’s 2 p.m. discussion at Emmanuel Episcopal Church. A second forum was scheduled for 7 p.m. in Frostburg, and Spiggle will host a third next month in Keyser, W.Va.

“This is kind of historic,” said Spiggle, who’s been researching health care reform for the last six years. “I don’t know of any other time an incoming administration has approached a public policy issue by first asking for grass roots input for how to approach it.”

Participants in Monday’s gathering watched a 45-minute DVD titled “Health, Money and Fear” before giving feedback.

The Obama transition team, which drafted the agenda for the community meetings, included a survey asking participants what they perceive is the biggest problem in the health care system and what’s the best way to develop a plan to address it.

“This is truly a systems problem,” said Patricia Hilton, adding that she believes government needs to get involved. “It’s not just the physicians, it’s not just the insurance companies. It’s patients, it’s all of us who are involved in this process.”

Echoing others, Hilton urged residents to contact members of Congress to make their concerns known.

Former Cumberland resident John Lange said he has friends who self-medicate instead of going to the doctor because they don’t have insurance and couldn’t afford to pay a doctor.

“Having a personal physician that knows you and cares about you is very important,” said Lange, who lives in Virginia, but was in town for the holidays. “Our family doctor used to make home visits. I was an asthmatic child and he used to administer medications at home. You won’t find that now.”

Contact Kristin Harty at kharty@times-news.com.