One CEO’s View: Why McCain’s Health Plan Is Better

By Todd Zwillich

In Case You Missed It

From WebMD’s "Election 2008 News Blog"

May 5, 2008


"John McCain does not believe that you fix health care by replacing one inefficient, irrational, and costly system with another."...


First, it [Sen. John McCain’s health care plan] does provide for health care and insurance for everyone, including the chronically uninsured. But it takes a distinctly different approach from either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton. John McCain does not believe that you fix health care by replacing one inefficient, irrational, and costly system with another. That other inefficient, irrational, and costly system would be a big government bureaucracy, which is what Sens. Obama and Clinton are proposing. Instead, what he proposes is to put power, choice, money, control in the hands of patients and families. And he would do that through some very specific actions. It starts with saying people have a choice. They can continue to receive health care through their employer if they have good health insurance provided by their employer, or they can choose to get a $5,000 tax credit for families, $2 ,500 for individuals, and build up a portable health insurance plan. They can carry it wherever they go. They can also buy insurance anywhere in the United States and they can buy it from anyone.


Today, you know, we have 50 separate markets for health insurance. And under John McCain’s plan you could buy insurance across state lines, you could choose any health provider you wanted. And that ability to choose -- the control that the patient and the family have to choose any doctor or choose any plan -- creates competition. And that, of course, drives down costs. He also would make the system much more transparent, requiring health care providers to put their prices, their results, customer comments, up on the Internet for everyone to see. You know there at WebMD that this technology exists, but not enough health care providers are using them, taking advantage of them, or required to use them. ...


Fiorina: First, I would say that employers will continue in many cases to continue providing health plans to employees. It’s a real benefit. I mean, I know as a former CEO, our health plan was an attractive benefit for employees. It’s one of the reasons we could attract people to come to the company and to stay with the company. So I think there are reasons why employers will want to continue providing it. And I think there are some cases where employees will continue to want to get their insurance from their employer. But I would also say that the tectonic shift you’re describing is already happening. That’s because health care costs are out of control, and employers, more and more, particularly small businesses, or companies that are not as giant as Hewlett-Packard, for instance, are finding it difficult to keep up. So I think what this plan does is recognize that fewer and fewer employers are going to be able to do this for employees. So let’s get ahead of that curve and make sure that people, whoever they work for, have the foundation in place that that shift happens well and we don’t leave a lot of people behind. ...


Fiorina: [J]ohn McCain is proposing a number of other important "tectonic shifts,"to use your term. One important one is that people can buy health insurance from anywhere. The market today is fragmented, and it’s not terribly competitive. If you and your family can shop for health insurance anywhere in the USA, it will drive down costs. Point two, John McCain believes we must -- and it will take time to do it -- but we must start to move health care providers and insurers away from a pricing system that’s based on tests and procedures, and toward one based on treatment and outcome. In other words, if you have a diabetic, instead of paying for all the tests and procedures, focus on whether the diabetic is better off after a year or not. That’s treatment and outcome instead of tests and procedures. And begin to shift the payments and incent ive structures. All of this takes time and won’t happen overnight. But unless we’re willing to make the move from tests and procedures to treatment and outcomes; from basically an oligopoly structured market to true open competition; and a transparent system where consumers can see,’what is the price?’,’what am I getting for my money?’ ... unless we do those things, we will never get costs down. ...


Fiorina: [T]his election is about the issues that matter to the American people. And John McCain will not shy away from those issues, that’s not who he is. John McCain is a leader, who, in my terms, runs to a problem, he doesn’t run away from it. Health care is a problem. It’s a problem for the American people, so he has to talk about it, he wants to talk about it, he will talk about it. Secondly, I think that Democrats frequently highlight their health care proposals because they always come back to’the government is the answer’ at a time when the American people have lost faith and trust in government, at a time when government is demonstrably inefficient, ineffective, and in some cases corrupt. I think John McCain can make the case very effectively that government is not the answer here. Yes, government has a role, but you don’t replace one big, irrational, costly system with another. ...?


To View The Entire Article, Please Visit: http://blogs.webmd.com/election-2008-health-pulse/2008/05/one-ceos-viewwhy- mccains-health-plan.html


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