The mission of Prognosis is to explore the nexus at which healthcare policy meets healthcare practice and how one affects the other. This blog makes readers more aware of the innovations taking place in healthcare delivery, financing and technology and the types of public policies that will encourage further progress.
Healthcare In Focus is a public education initiative of the HLC, created to promote a constructive dialogue about the state and future of American healthcare.
Ron Williams, the chief executive officer of Aetna and a member of the Healthcare Leadership Council executive committee, is a co-chair of the prestigious Davos Economic Summit. While in Davos, Mr. Williams took the time to sit down with Fox Business News and discuss the current state of health reform and what’s missing from the current legislation that is stalled on Capitol Hill.
He makes important points about the need to emphasize care coordination between physicians and hospitals, the noticeable absence of medical liability reform which leads to rising defensive medicine costs, and the pressing need to make the financially challenged Medicare program more cost effective.
We hear it all the time. It’s a nonstop drumbeat. Healthcare in the United States is too expensive and too low in quality compared to other countries. Critics are constantly citing the World Health Organization which, in its most recent rankings, said the U.S. ranks 37th in overall healthcare performance.
In reality, though, what kind of healthcare do Americans receive? And would we really trade what we have for what is offered to citizens in other nations.
Dr. Mark Constantian, a reconstructive surgeon in New Hampshire, investigated that question and shared his conclusions in the Wall Street Journal last week. Dr. Constantian found that, when it comes to the factors that patients and healthcare consumers care about the most, healthcare in this country stacks up pretty well. Read more
Chairman Baucus deserves to be commended for his steadfast efforts to develop health reform legislation that has the potential to gain strong majority support in the United States Senate. Health reform – an issue that affects our nation’s long-term prosperity and the well-being of every American – needs to be bipartisan and avoid ideological extremes that divide the country rather than uniting us. Chairman Baucus has committed to work with Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and that is an effort that must continue.
The Baucus bill takes some very positive steps toward improving our nation’s health care system. It addressed the uninsured by bringing everyone into the system, proposing essential insurance market reforms and providing subsidies and tax credits to Americans of limited means. The bill makes critical delivery and payment reforms, aligning dollars with healthcare quality and incentivizing coordinated care. It calls for significant investments in prevention and wellness. Read more
I’ll say once again that the government option controversy is taking up so much space in this debate that we’re losing sight of the other essential objectives of health reform. We need legislation that will increase access to health coverage and that will incentivize care coordination between providers. We need to align health care payments with quality and value. We need to find ways to use comparative effectiveness as a tool to improve clinical performance. These are issues that will affect every American patient and health care consumer, but they’re not getting the attention they deserve.
President Obama said at one of his recent town hall meetings that the government option is just a “small sliver” of the health reform debate. HHS Secretary Sebelius said the Administration, while it still prefers a government option, needs to be open to other workable coverage alternatives. Read more
President Obama has rightly and frequently cited the Cleveland Clinic as one of the health providers in this country that provides the kind of high-quality, cost-effective care that should be emulated nationwide. Given that fact, it makes sense to take note of an interview the Clinic’s CEO, Toby Cosgrove, provided last week to Newsweek Magazine.
As Dr. Cosgrove points out, the debate over health reform during the August congressional recess has focused almost exclusively on the coverage issue. In fact, there has even been a tactical decision by some policymakers to refer to “health insurance reform” instead of “health reform.” This, unfortunately, takes attention away from the issues of quality, delivery reform and cost-effectiveness that will have the greatest impact on the future and sustainability of our healthcare system. Read more
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