Health care solutions discussed
Cantwell warm to idea of regional cooperatives
Sen. Maria Cantwell remains cool to a centralized public-option health care plan that, if it worked as envisioned by the Obama administration and supporters, would compete with the private sector to hold down insurance and medical costs.
And she is cool to a new tax on health benefit plans that run in excess of $15,000 annually when combining the amount paid by the employee and the employer.
But she’s interested in the idea of creating regional health care cooperatives to achieve similar results and go a long way toward covering the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.
Cantwell, D-Wash., who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, convened a panel of health care experts Monday in Spokane to discuss the topic.
The national lens will pass over Seattle-based nonprofit Group Health Cooperative, Cantwell said, as congressional leaders examine cooperatives like those of yesteryear that delivered critical services such as phones and electricity to farmers and rural communities.
Dr. Brad Pope, Group Health’s district medical director, said the cooperative’s integrated business plan helps it deliver excellent care to members while offering enhanced plans that let patients choose outside providers at higher prices.
Pope urged Cantwell to focus on boosting the number of primary care doctors as a way to strengthen patient care and control costs.
Several panelists said efficient patient care is penalized by a Medicare reimbursement system based on patient numbers and costs rather than quality results.
The panelists, including Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, chief executive of Providence Health Care, and officials of the state’s large health insurers, warned against the government piling more money and programs atop a national system described as “backwards” and “broken.”
Any national health care reform fix must include ways to lure more medical students into primary care rather than specialties if costs are to be contained. Experts have estimated a shortage of 46,000 primary care doctors within 15 years.