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National Patient Advocate Foundation Applauds Obama Administration's Health Policy Summit, Commitment to Fixing Health Care System

Posted on: Thursday, 12 March 2009, 14:38 CDT

WASHINGTON, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Patient Advocate Foundation (NPAF) - a national, non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of creating avenues of improved patient access to health care through public policy reform at the state and federal levels - today praised the Obama Administration for convening last week's health care reform summit held at the White House. President Barack Obama invited more than 140 people to the summit, including representatives from Congress, patient groups, drug companies, labor unions and the health care industry to discuss ways to fix the health care system.

President Obama made a commitment to patients by inviting the American Cancer Society, Families USA and the National Partnership for Women and Families to participate in the summit. In his remarks, President Obama said increasing premiums and the rising number of uninsured people are growing problems and proposed a $634 billion reserve fund to help pay for the overhaul of the American health care system.

"We commend President Obama for highlighting the critically important need for health care reform at last week's summit and for his commitment to immediately address our health care crisis, including specifically addressing medical debts that lead to bankruptcy," said Nancy Davenport-Ennis, Founder and CEO of NPAF and its companion organization, the Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF). "Globally, more than 60 percent of all patients who contacted PAF in 2008 reported debt crisis as their primary issue. In 56.5 percent of these cases this debt was caused by health care expenses incurred by a person after the onset of an illness. As we examine the insurance status of patients reporting debt crisis as their primary concern, we find that 93 percent were insured."

This finding is important as it reflects the growing crisis of America's underinsured population. These individuals are most often hard-working, middle class Americans who are covered by health insurance but cannot sustain financial security once diagnosed with an illness. NPAF looks forward to working with the President and the Congress to ensure that health care reform is accomplished this year so that this serious situation can be corrected.

NPAF and its companion organization, the Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF), were founded on the principle that health care is a basic human need and shared social responsibility. NPAF is dedicated to working with the Administration, Congress and all health care stakeholders to overcome challenges and create solutions that will provide affordable, high-quality health care for all. PAF directly assists patients with chronic and life-threatening conditions who are struggling with access to care issues. Last year, PAF received more than 9.5 million inquiries requesting information by phone or on-line and provided complete case management mediation and arbitration services to 48,369 patients confronting serious health care access issues.

For more information see www.npaf.org.

SOURCE National Patient Advocate Foundation

Source: PR Newswire

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