By Peter Nesbitt

Most discussions regarding health care focus on parts that need fixing. Health care has many parts and some are broken and some aren't. But if we want to solve the problem, first we better decide on whether we have the right model. In the model that follows, we strongly emphasize building trust between participants but, as always, trust has to be verified.

Several years ago, we had the idea of building a non-adversarial managed care system for large employers and their injured workers. We named it "The Managed Care Alliance." As people familiar with workers' compensation know, it is among the most adversarial medical systems in the world. Employers and payers have little control over medical care and attendant costs. Abuse was rampant and providers, patients, and payers were pitted against each other. Many cases ended up in the courts. Our theory was that by eliminating friction, we could better ensure appropriate care for patients and significantly lower costs. Over a 10 year period during which I was involved, that is exactly what happened.

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By Roger Collier

Browsing through some 2007 entries in Bob Laszewski’s Healthcare Policy and Marketplace Review blog recently, I came across Bob’s rave review for a health care reform proposal from the National Coalition on Health Care.

The National Coalition, for anyone unfamiliar with the organization, is (or ought to be) a health care reform powerhouse. Members of the Coalition listed on its website include the AARP, General Electric, Duke Energy, UnitedHealth, the AFL-CIO, Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield, the American College of Surgeons, the California Public Retirement System, the Episcopal Church, and the Salvation Army—a remarkable cross-section of business, health care, and social and community organizations.

Individual supporters listed include such BIG political names as former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush and former Senate majority leaders Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Tom Daschle, as well as health economics luminaries Henry Aaron, Stuart Altman, Arnold Relman, Donald Berwick, and Uwe Reinhardt. It’s hard to imagine a more impressive list, or one with more potential firepower in the battle for reform.

The Coalition was formed in 1990, just as reform was becoming one of the top items on the national political agenda. It was established as a non-profit, non-partisan organization, with—in the words of its early materials—“members united in the belief that America needs better, more affordable health care and that all Americans should have health insurance.” 

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By Sarah Arnquist

In the grocery business, volume counts. Profit margins of mere pennies comprise the bottom line, and so health care costs rising at nearly double-digit inflation rates threaten to undermine the grocer’s business model.

Hence, one of the nation’s largest supermarket chief executive officers has his sights set on reducing rates of obesity among his 200,000 employees.

Safeway CEO Steve Burd looked at the numbers and concluded obesity is the root of a majority of his company’s health care costs. The way he sees it, chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, are his primary cost drivers. Obesity is behind them all.

Relying on his steadfast belief in the efficiency of markets, Burd led his self-insured company in 2005 to create a health plan that puts healthy behavior incentives squarely in front of his employees.

In the three years since, Safeway’s health costs increased only a half a percentage point, Burd told an audience of hundreds of health services and policy researchers last week in Washington D.C. In that time, most businesses have experienced about 16 percent increases in family premiums.

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By Matthew Holt

If I worked on the editorial board of a “news” organization that was owned by a lunatic from South Korea
who is a convicted criminal whose cult has been justifiably accused of kidnapping beating, and enslaving its followers I would be very, very, very careful before I started comparing the people who support an improved national health care IT infrastructure to  Hitler and suggesting that they advocate mass slaughter of sick people.

But then I don’t work for the Washington Times. But even a written comparison isn’t enough.

They actually put a picture of Adolf Hitler next to their “editorial”.

Hat tip to Neil Versel and others who are as disgusted as I am

THCB would not exist without the  support of our generous sponsors. So we’d like to give a shout to our friends at Connextions Health. Connextions Health provides people and technology-driven business process solutions for health care insurers seeking to build or strengthen their consumer direct capabilities; helping plans to attract, acquire & retain individual and small group members. Visit Connextions Health. to learn more. Thanks guys!!! Interested in reaching a national monthly audience of 75,000 healthcare-obsessed readers? Drop us a line. We’ll get back to you with rates and options.

By Josh Seidman

There’s no doubt that people — especially those with (multiple)
chronic conditions — need a more holistic model for managing their
health needs than what our delivery system currently offers. The PCMH
model is intriguing, but I have worried that many examples of PCMH
deployment thus far have been centered around the physician’s office
(and, to some extent, the physician’s needs).

In contrast, most patients with health problems are living 24/7 with
whatever is affecting their quality of life, and not much of it is
spent in the doctor’s office. Think about it: There are 8,760 hours in
a year, and how many of them are spent in a health care facility?
Unless someone has multiple hospitalizations in a given year, the
answer is probably far less than 1 percent.

I’ve been fascinated for a long time now by the potential of Ix and
Health 2.0 strategies to deliver to us more robust models of truly
patient-centered medical homes than we have seen in most of the
country. Thankfully, other (smarter) people have also been thinking
about this and were able to join us to present in a recent webinar.

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