How can we cure our ailing health care system?

That was the question posed by the film Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Health Care. The film was presented as part of the Center for Community Growths 2014 film series on Friday at the Indiana Theater along Philadelphia Street.

American health care costs are rising so rapidly that they could reach $4.2 trillion annually, roughly 20 percent of our gross domestic product, within 10 years, according to the films website. We spend $300 billion a year on pharmaceutical drugs almost as much as the rest of the world combined. We pay more, yet our health outcomes are worse.

[PHOTO: Peter Broad, left, moderated the panel discussion with Dr. Abigail Adams, IUP anthropology professor and medical anthropologist; Dr. Kim Hatcher, president of the Indiana County Medical Society; Lee Bevak, certified application counselor for the Affordable Care Act; and Elizabeth Sierminski, board member of Healthcare 4 All PA. (James J. Nestor/Gazette photo)]

Joining the film was a panel of four people, each with backgrounds in health care or health care policy. The panel consisted of Abigail Adams, IUP anthropology professor and medical anthropologist; Dr. Kim Hatcher, dermatologist and president of the Indiana County Medical Society; Lee Bevak, certified application counselor for the Affordable Care Act, with the Armstrong-Indiana Drug and Alcohol Commission; and Elizabeth Sierminski, Health Care 4 All PA development coordinator and board member and University of Pittsburgh student.

The panel was moderated by Peter Broad, an Indiana Borough councilman.

Initial comments were given by the panel prior to the beginning of the film, with a question-and-answer session held afterward.

The U.S. spends more on health care per capita or as a percentage of gross domestic product than any other nation on earth, Broad said, referring to the films premise. At the same time we have some of the worst health care results when compared to other industrialized nations.

Broad also cited high infant mortality rates and high obesity rates.

Adams urged the audience to go into the film thinking of health care as a business driven by economic demand. Health care has become a compartmentalized system dependent on having a large population of unhealthy individuals, she said. She also asked the audience to consider what she called medical citizenship, or ideas of entitlement and deservedness that articulate what we deem to be the basic rights as citizens, what human rights are recognized as regarding health.

Read the rest here:

Forum, film shine spotlight on health care