Healthcare Reform Starts at Home
Hospitals must be on the forefront of proposing ideas for healthcare reform — even ideas that they may not have supported in the past.
It's too early in the presidential campaign to know the specifics of how each candidate would propose to reform the nation's healthcare system, but one thing is certain: Hospitals must be on the forefront of proposing ideas for healthcare reform — even ideas that they may not have supported in the past.
"Reform starts at home," Richard J. Umbdenstock, president and CEO for the American Hospital Association (AHA), told healthcare finance professionals at the 2008 ANI: The Healthcare Finance Conference, held June 23-26 in Las Vegas. "Every stakeholder [hospitals, businesses, unions, payers, and consumer advocacy groups] has to be thinking about what that stakeholder would do — even absent legislative changes — to reform our healthcare system."
If hospitals don't take a lead in providing guidance for healthcare reform and in collaborating with other stakeholders to provide guidance for reform efforts, "Our greatest fear is that 'healthcare reform' (will become) 'hospital reform' — and then it's going to become a payment whack," he says.
Umbdenstock discussed "Healthcare Policy in the Election Year" during a keynote presentation at ANI in Las Vegas. Healthcare will play a significant role in voters' choice for president. One in four Americans has serious concerns about the amount they are spending for health care, according to the results of a survey by Kaiser Health announced Wednesday. About half are most worried about increases in the amount the average American pays out-of-pocket for health care and insurance, according to survey results. It's clear that cost and affordability of care are two of the biggest concerns Americans have about the U.S. healthcare system. "Even when (consumers) talk about quality of care, it has a cost and affordability undertone: 'You'd think with all the money we're paying, they could get it right,'" Umbdenstock says.
So far, presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama have not gone into great detail regarding their ideas on healthcare reform. "When you look at what they've said (about healthcare reform) so far, they really haven't said very much," Umbdenstock says. Umbdenstock added that it's still early in the campaign: "They have to get more specific in order to address the concerns of various stakeholder groups," he says. During his presentation at ANI, he framed his discussion in three parts: how the public views health care, the political view of health care, and what we need to do to redirect and reinvent our healthcare system.
Key questions that must be answered in the debate on healthcare reform include:
- Is healthcare a right, or a responsibility?
- Is it a business, or a public good?
- Is it a cost, or an investment?
- Or, is healthcare a national resource?
There is no correct set of answers to these questions, Umbdenstock says. "What we have to do is view this broadly and realize it will take a number of strategies (to reform our healthcare system)," he says. Determining the best path for healthcare reform will require a collaboration between key stakeholders — hospitals, businesses, unions, payers, and consumer advocacy groups.
He praised HFMA's report Healthcare Payment Reform: From Principles to Action, released this week at ANI. The report was the result of significant input from representatives of a variety of key stakeholders — consumers, providers, payers, and employers — who took time to contribute to this critical topic. "I think that's a terrific contribution to the discussion that's going to have to happen," he says.