Here & Now

What's on Your Mind, Wisconsin: Health Care

Rod Gottfredsen:

Austin’s barbershop.

It’s been here since 1914. It’s been downtown here.

Adam Schrager:

At Austin’s barbershop in Beloit, the buzz these days is never far from the issues facing the country.

Tom Barnes:

Rod and I talk politics all the time.

Adam Schrager:

Rod Gottfredsen is an equal-opportunity barber. His chair serves as a barometer of the issues facing this country. When we met him and his costumer, Tom Barnes, one of the things they were talking about was health care.

Tom Barnes:

Last three years I broke an ankle one year, a leg another year, a finger another year.

Rod Gottfredsen:

I’ve seen this guy on crutches. He looks like Hop-along Casualty.

Tom Barnes:

Health care costs are expensive, very expensive. Fortunately, we’ve got insurance, but it doesn’t pay for everything, and I’ve had to pay the difference myself.

Adam Schrager:

Being self-employed, Rod didn’t get his own insurance. He got it through his wife, a breast cancer survivor. When she was laid off, the issue became more than personal.

Rod Gottfredsen:

Tried finding somebody who’s going to pick you up when you’ve got preexisting conditions. We finally did get a company to take us, but we had to agree to pay like 25% higher premium and it’s– it’s, quite frankly, probably the biggest killer of my being self-employed. It’s $1200 a month that we have to come up with for health insurance and it’s tough, especially when we were only used to paying $345 a month.

Adam Schrager:

Cost is also a concern in Stevens Point for small business owner Jennifer Brilowski.

Jennifer Brilowski:

I recently lost coverage of a prescription that I really need that would cost me several hundred dollars a month. So what do I do? Do I go without it, or do I pay, you know, $60 a dose for a medication? Something’s broken in the system.

Adam Schrager:

It’s a system dramatically impacting her finances, as she struggles with a chronic neck issue.

Jennifer Brilowski:

Health care is huge. Any debt, any real debt that I’ve accumulated in my life has been from medical costs. Some of that has been while insured. Some of that has been while not insured. And either way is terrible.

Nurse:

Let’s see how high your blood pressure is doing.

Adam Schrager:

Roye Logan is one of the 30,000 patients every year at the Milwaukee Health Initiative.

Tito Izard:

We know there’s a significant percent of our population that has needs.

Adam Schrager:

It’s a community health center that treats people regardless of insurance or income.

Tito Izard:

Our goal, our desire, is to try to capture people who actually need, in most cases, a temporary helping hand to try to get them to where they need to go.

Adam Schrager:

Dr. Tito Izard runs the facility, now looking to expand to meet a growing need.

Nurse:

Did you take your blood pressure medication today?

Roye Logan:

Yes, I did.

Tito Izard:

Especially in Milwaukee, the more capacity we create, the more patients will actually come to receive services.

Adam Schrager:

He grew up here on the north side of Milwaukee and is saddened by what he’s seeing now in his neighborhood.

Tito Izard:

I think the most disturbing thing that most of us are experiencing, it’s the hopelessness that we see in the faces of the young.

Adam Schrager:

Hopelessness, he says, that his staff battles every day in addition to biology.

Nurse:

Your heart sounds great.

Adam Schrager:

The center focuses on holistic health care, doing anything possible to help specific patient needs.

Tito Izard:

We’re here to try to help someone else. We’re here to serve other people. Obviously, as a physician, as the CEO, I believe in that. But no matter what our job is, we all can help serve other people. And that connection, the connectivity to another human being to help that person achieve their goals, that’s the true America. That’s what it’s all about.