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lexrex commented on the blog post What Romneycare Probably Can’t Tell Us About National Health Care Reform
Enough hyperbole. Talk straight.
The problem with American health care, those who have studied the system will tell you, is not that we get too little care but that we use too much. By some estimates, as much as 30 cents of every health-care dollar is spent on medical treatment that is unnecessary, ineffective, duplicative or even harmful. …While the current system pays them for the amount of care they provide, real reform would put more emphasis on the quality of that care and the outcomes it achieves.
Dr. Atul Gwande in his June 1, 2009, New Yorker article, The Cost Conundrum, observed that
the Mayo Clinic, the Geisinger Health System, the Marshfield Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente all functioned on similar principles, all are not-for-profit institutions, and all have produced enviably higher quality and lower costs than the average American town enjoys.
Dr. Gwande found that these and other successful accountable care organizations have
adopted measures to blunt harmful financial incentives, and they took collective responsibility for improving the sum total of patient care. …The damning question we have to ask is whether the doctor is set up to meet the needs of the patient, first and foremost, or to maximize revenue.
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lexrex commented on the blog post What Romneycare Probably Can’t Tell Us About National Health Care Reform
Of course, all those long faces over at the WSJ editorial board do not tell its readers about the optimistic note recently made by Glen Shor, executive director of the insurance exchange set up by Massachusetts, who commended managed care organizations for saving Massachusetts taxpayers $80 million dollars. Perhaps the WSJ has a bias against managed care organizations, one vehicle found to be effective in reducing costs.
Faced with projected 11% membership growth in the Commonwealth Care program next year as people lose unemployment benefits – and no additional resources to cover that growth – we encouraged our Medicaid managed care organizations to deliver high-quality, cost-effective coverage for less. They came through for the taxpayers with savings of $80 million, meaning that our members will not have to face the prospect of benefit reductions or unaffordable co-payments.
More importantly (and something the WSJ would never get), Mr. Shor put the matter of cost reduction into perspective:
While we are proud of the fact that 98.1 percent of our residents and 99.8 percent of our children have coverage, the [Massachusetts fifth anniversary health care reform] event poignantly showcased that reform isn’t just about numbers. It’s about helping people. We’re succeeding on both fronts.(emphasis added)
