Cook Group announces $600,000 donation to clinic

Cook Group Inc., a Bloomington-based medical devices company, pledged $600,000 Tuesday to a new free medical clinic in Monroe County.\nThe clinic, called Volunteers in Medicine of Monroe County, is scheduled to open by next July. Kem Hawkins, president of Cook Group, announced the donation at a town hall meeting in which city officials and Bloomington residents discussed the perceived crisis in U.S. health care and possible solutions for it. The meeting, initiated by Bloomington's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission and Safe and Civil City Program, came just hours after a press conference in Monroe County Public Library announcing the establishment of the clinic.\n"Costly, complex, inefficient, confusing, disconnected and dangerous are some of the terms used to describe America's health care system," Edwin Marshall, the discussion's moderator, said to a capacity crowd at the Monroe County Public Library. "This has the potential to be a catastrophic crisis."\nMarshall, associate dean of Academic Affairs and Student Administration at the IU School of Optometry, cited a recent congressional report stating that the number of uninsured people in the country is growing. He proposed that all U.S. residents should have access to affordable health care by 2012.\nSix panelists agreed that universal health care coverage for all is the ideal solution for the current health care crisis situation, and preventive measures, like stressing healthy living and not abusing emergency room visits, are key to lowering health care costs.\nPanelists at the meeting included Hawkins, Volunteers in Medicine board member Winston Shindell, state Sen. Vi Simpson and Dr. Rob Stone of Bloomington Hospital.\nHawkins called on those attending the meeting to help meet future costs by starting an endowment fund that would provide funding past the first year. \n"I challenge Indiana University and local business leaders to raise the money necessary to keep this going," he said.\nShindell explained that the new clinic would serve residents of Monroe and Owen counties who fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and have no health insurance.\nHe said 21,000 people in Monroe and Owen counties live without health insurance. He also said that because America does not have a universal health care policy, concerned citizens and local communities need to step up and challenge the system.\nLocal resident Milton Fisk questioned the panel about the cost of universal health care to the taxpayer. Simpson answered that the money needed to pay for universal coverage is already being paid to the system.\n"We're already paying for health care for everyone. We're just doing it inefficiently," Simpson said, alluding to cost-shifting practices and profits insurance companies and prescription drug companies rake in every year.\nSimpson said legislative efforts to pass a universal health care system in Indiana were being worked on at the Statehouse. Eight states currently have some type of universal health care legislation pending.\nThe panel praised Bloomington Hospital for its role in the community and for supporting the new Volunteers in Medicine clinic.\nThe clinic will be located in donated space and will replace the hospital's Community Health Access Program clinic at 333 E. Miller Drive.\n"Bloomington Hospital has been invaluable to us," Shindell said. "They have been on board with us in a big, big way."\nLocal resident Jay Pansare expressed the frustration of many in the room when he addressed the panel.\n"We need a revolution in this country," Pansare exclaimed. "How can we spend billions of dollars on a road (the proposed I-69 extension) when so many people can't even afford to go to the doctor"