HEALTH CARE: Real World Solutions That Really Work

For quality-oriented health care communities across America, "yes we can" has nothing to do with politics.  It's about what they do every day. In red states and blue.

Four of the top health policy experts in the nation -- a bipartisan crowd, by the way, and they are all physicians -- convened representatives of 10 of high-quality, low-cost communities in Washington recently (we wrote about it). In a New York Times op-ed today, they explain why the rest of the country should take note: this can be our future.

Instead of screaming at each other about fictional plots to have the government start euthanizing people,  we should pay attention. They write (emphasis ours):

We have reached a sobering point in our national health-reform debate. Americans have recognized that our health system is bankrupting us and that we have dealt with this by letting the system price more and more people out of health care. So we are trying to decide if we are willing to change -- willing to ensure that everyone can have coverage. That means banishing the phrase "pre-existing condition." It also means finding ways to pay for coverage for those who can't afford it without help.

Both of these steps stir heated argument, not to mention lobbyists' hearts. But what creates the deepest unease is considering what we will have to do about the system's exploding costs if pushing more people out is no longer an option. We have really discussed only two options: raising taxes or rationing care. The public is understandably alarmed.

There is a far more desirable alternative: to change how care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective...

They then go on to cite exactly why and how this is possible. Even if you aren't the Mayo Clinic.

The savings in the communities are real. So is the quality. We at New America's Health Policy program have been working with a group of pro-reform Health CEOs who are also traveling along a quality-cost route (although not all at the same speed). This blog has highlighted other innovators, and we know more are out there. The savings are concrete and measurable. Not always in ways that the CBO can score (not because the CBO is part of some anti-reform cabal, but because its professionals must follow legally prescribed technical rules about what's "scorable"). But they are nevertheless real, valuable, and really, really useful.

Health reform, with better incentives for providing patient-centered, cost-effective and high quality care, can make more success stories. As the four op-ed writers conclude: "If the rest of America could achieve the performances of regions like these, our health care cost crisis would be over."