Businesses: We Need True Healthcare Reform

Supporters of government-run health care often say that anyone who opposes them is also against health care reform. That’s an amazingly wrong conclusion based on a “remedy” that could prove worse than the disease.

We need to reform health care. Years of skyrocketing costs—the vast majority of which have been paid for by businesses and their employees—have pushed health care insurance beyond affordability for many people and forced very difficult decisions regarding whether to buy insurance at all.

We need health care reform, but it should be true health care reform that reduces costs, improves quality and increases access to insurance coverage. It should improve our system without causing bigger problems we can’t afford.     Lawmakers shouldn’t be fooled by attempts to simply expand the reach of government disguised as health care reform. Arguing that government-run health care is the only path to reform is just plain wrong.

A new Rasmussen survey shows that 61% of surveyed Americans believe that Congress should scrap the current health care bills—heavily pitched toward expanding government control–and start over.

True health care reform doesn’t wrench control away from consumers and give it to bureaucrats. It analyzes the root causes of why health care is so expensive, why quality is down and why people and businesses are finding it hard to purchase coverage.

Hallmarks of true reform

True health care reform doesn’t expand the size, scope and cost of state government. Instead, true health care reform offers common sense solutions for lawmakers, such as:

• Reduce private insurance costs – Stop the cost-shifting from public to private health plans (and encourage participation in public health programs by doctors) by requiring the state to pay its fair share.
• Require coverage—Establish an individual health insurance mandate, enact individual insurance market reforms and ban the industry practice of denying coverage for preexisting conditions.
• Improve people’s health—Create public/private partnerships for wellness and disease-management programs to improve our health.
• Unlock information—Expand the use of technology to make health care information more accessible to consumers and doctors.
• Promote value-based plans—Use health plan designs that measure results in all state-offered plans to encourage more efficient and effective care.
• Reform medical malpractice—Stabilize Connecticut’s medical malpractice system so doctors’ malpractice insurance premiums are lowered and the practice of defensive medicine is curbed.
• Highlight HUSKY—Better promote HUSKY and other existing public health care programs to encourage participation in them for qualified residents.
• Promote the ‘medical home’ concept—Work with the private sector to ensure better coordination of patient care services to improve health care quality and chronic disease management.

True health care reform doesn’t needlessly expand state government, especially when the state can’t pay for its current health care programs. CBIA supports true reforms that will bring about better healthcare for more people at a lower price.