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Time to Pay Attention
After all these months of general talk about health-care reform, it's finally time for consumers to start really paying attention. President Obama's speech to the doctors of the American Medical Association did us all a service. He effectively translated many of the most complex ideas in health care into clear, understandable language, and then tied his positions back to the real problems people face getting and paying for care. As we talk with consumers across the country, they are quite clear about what's wrong with our health-care system but much less clear about what the reform options being discussed really mean for them.
One thing we've learned from people who have sent us their stories is that many are happy with their insurance until they have a major medical problem. Then they learn that their policies don't really cover all of the care they need. Unfortunately, by then, it's too late. They wind up saddled with huge debts and the label of "pre-existing conditions." It's no wonder that many of the medical-related bankruptcies in the U.S. are for people with insurance.
If we are really going to achieve meaningful reform of our health care system - which is desperately needed - the American public must ignore the scare tactics that are starting to fill the airwaves and instead take time to grasp what the proposed changes would mean for their families, their doctors and their communities. Everyone needs to pay attention, because everyone is affected.
By
DeAnn Friedholm
|
June 17, 2009; 9:51 AM ET
| Category:
Health Care Reform
,
Insurance
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Posted by: haneshoney75 | June 18, 2009 3:19 PM
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6/15
RE: Cautious comments and TQM. Health care does use multiple metrics and has embraced Baldrige performance improvement, Lean Six Sigma and other industry TQM methodologies. (Full disclosure - I am a Board-certified nurse in Nursing Informatics who also volunteers as a Baldrige examiner at the state/national level.)We have CMS(Center for Medicare/Medicaid), NPSG (National Patient Safety Goals) and IOM (Institute of Medicine) metrics to name a few.
RE: question of the day - I think we need to move from "illness/acute" to a "health/prevention" mode and create financial incentives that reward health, not illness.