MEETING SET TO EXAMINE HEALTH CARE

A special community meeting will be held Dec. 18 to discuss affordable and accessible health care for Southeast Missouri residents and to seek input on legislative remedies.

The meeting will be held at the Drury Lodge from 8-10 a.m.

The community meeting is being sponsored by the Missouri Health Care Forum, an organization of leaders in Missouri's business, labor, insurance and health care provider communities that was formed in 1990 to study health care access and cost factors.

Participants in the forum are Missouri Chamber of Commerce, Missouri AFL-CIO, General American Life Insurance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri and Kansas City, Business Men's Assurance, Missouri Managed Healthcare Association, Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, Missouri State Medical Association, Associated Industries of Missouri and Missouri Hospital Association.

During the meeting here, members of the forum hope to discuss problems such as access to health care, cost shifting, inattention to primary and preventive care and unnecessary utilization of services.

Input from key community leaders will be sought for inclusion in a "blueprint for action" that the forum hopes to take to the 1992 Missouri General Assembly.

For more information, contact Tony Reinhart of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce at 634-3511 or Julie Simpson of the Missouri Hospital Association at 893-3700.