Health Care Reform Needs a Business Barometer

On October 1, 2009 I attended an eye-opening forum on health care reform sponsored by the CATO Institute. It featured businessman David Goodhill who was speaking as a son whose father died needlessly from an infection he contracted during a brief hospital stay. His father spent 5 weeks in the hospital before he died from the infections and complications. Mr. Goodhill's message was that no other business or public institution in this country would be allowed to remain in business, or be unchecked, unchallenged if it "allowed" 100,000 people a year to die, especially from preventable acquired infections and medical errors. He's right!

Mr. Goodhill then went on to discuss our health care system from a business perspective, after much research. There is no basis for the prescribed prices and spiraling costs. While it may be a basis for applying discounts, it is not based on reality. His father's hospital bill for five weeks was $636,000, but his insurance bill was $990. Insurance paid the rest. So there is no accountability. Being a businessman, he did a cost analysis. His father could have stayed at the Ritz hotel for 5 weeks, he could have rented the expensive medical equipment and 2 hours of doctor time per day for less than $300,000.

Part of the health care debate is the fear that adding 15 million uninsured to a public plan would increase medical spending exponentially. Goodhill calculated that the $350 billion that the US spends each year on Medicaid could insure everyone for emergency medical care AND give every family at least $3000 a year to cover preventative care. That is pretty eye opening proposition, compared to the naysayers.

He makes a distinction between health care insurance and health care services, and the absurdity of expecting businesses to be equipped to control health care costs when the hospitals and doctors and insurance companies have been unable to do so. He believes we should spend more on preventive care rather than emergency care. He is also a strong proponent of the capitalistic system and market forces, giving consumers control of health care spending, and requiring prices to be posted to create competition and accountability. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. We compare prices and options on everything else we purchase. Why not the same for health care, and being able to make reasoned tradeoffs in care options and costs?

Mr. Goodhill's premise is spelled out in his article article "How American Health Care Killed My Father," The Atlantic, September 2009. Your can read it at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

This should be required reading for all Americans, businesses, and especially Congress, as we contemplate how we should proceed on health care reform.

My message for today is that we all have a responsibility to reflect on where we want the country to move with health care. We have to be prudent. The health care system is breaking this country and bankrupting families and ruining lives. We have to make tough choices and priorities to get our health system back on track, so it is fair and equitable, without escalating costs that have no bearing to reality. Women and children and families, and businesses -- large and small -- need to have access to a public health care option NOW.

It will be cheaper than relying on emergency room care for what should be routine medical care. Then we need to work on changing the system and the priorities so to focus on preventative care and wellness so we will have healthier generations of Americans.