Meaningful health care reform must be accomplished; sooner rather than later, to avoid deepening the national debt, however, rushing a plan through Congress without all the pieces in place isn’t the answer to the tune-up we need. 

 

Most Americans are satisfied with their health insurance, so why are we throwing out the baby with the bath water for just those that really need the coverage? Yes, we must address escalating costs; coverage for those that desire and cannot afford health insurance and tackle coverage issues. But other things must come before or in conjunction with reform or real change will be a bust.

 

Enact Immigration Reform: An estimated 10 million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants. Do Americans really know and understand who we believe should be covered and who should be turned away? Let’s have some thoughtful discussion to understand if and how illegal immigrants should receive the benefit of our health care dollars and then decide how to integrate this into health care reform. 

 

Enact Medical Malpractice Reform: Lawyers must get out of the way so doctors will stop ordering unnecessary tests. Costs will decrease if doctors know that lawyers will restrain from pursuing unnecessary law suits. National torte reform is essential for doctors to once again trust their education, instincts and physical exams but they will not stop practicing defensive medicine until this is accomplished.

 

Increase Primary Care Provider Infrastructure/Reimbursement: There are not enough providers to care for all those coming to the table now and it will quickly get worse if 47 million people will soon try and make appointments with primary care providers. Move quickly to incentivize docs to practice family medicine. Incentivize docs to practice in rural communities and liberalize the laws which constrain nurse practitioners in many states to independently practice. Take the “business” out of medicine - Stop the “cattle call” of patients to bolster revenue and start reimbursing for quality visits and not quantity.

 

Create a Patient-Centric Focus: Put patients first! Patients have gotten lost in the mix between the doctor, the payer and the drug companies. Consumers are held hostage to what payers will provide for and we better be happy with it because there are no other options. Patients are routinely confronted with little or no choice in almost every aspect of health care and they are the most important stakeholder. Patient choice is the cornerstone of a democratic system. Put patients in the center of their care with tools and services to help them become healthier and manage their health. Give patients their electronic medical records to own, not the payers, institutions or the doctors and keep payers out of decisions that only patients, families, in consultation with doctors, must make.

 

With an understanding of these issues, health care reform will be easier to plan and legislate. Then we can tackle quality and quality health insurance must include:

Let’s have some serious debate about these underlying issues so we can move quickly to the heart of health care reform. Put the cart back in the barn and take care of the basics with a transparent dialogue and all of the stakeholders at the table.

 

Stay Tuned for Part Two: What Cancer Patients Need in Health Care Reform