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'Nine for '09' reform plan unveiled at Summit in Akron
By Cheryl Powell
Beacon Journal medical writer
Published on Tuesday, Oct 07, 2008
An Akron-based hospital system is trying to inject a local voice into the growing national debate about how to cover the uninsured and bring down medical costs for everyone.
Summa President and Chief Executive Thomas J. Strauss unveiled a plan for health-care reform called ''Nine for '09'' during the Summa Health Policy Summit on Monday morning at the Akron-Summit County Public Library in downtown
Akron.
The event, attended by about 230 people, is part of an effort by Summit County's largest employer to take a bigger role in pushing for health-care reform on a national level.
The ''Nine for '09'' initiative is a list of principles that Summa leaders believe should guide national efforts to fix problems in health care, Strauss said.
''We have reached a tipping point in health care when it comes to health-care reform,'' Strauss said. ''At the end of the day, even if most of the debate occurs on
the national level, all health care is local.''
The event also featured speeches by Dr. Robert Berenson, a Medicare expert and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.; and Chris Jennings, a national health policy expert who served as senior health-care adviser to President Clinton.
Jennings said health-care reform is more likely now than in the past, in large part because rising costs and cost-shifting to care for the uninsured have serious impacts on the economy.
Both presidential candidates are proposing changes to the system to insure more Americans.
''The second-best option is no longer to do nothing,'' he said.
Integrated health-care systems that bring together hospitals and doctors can be part of the solution, particularly when it comes to coordinating the care for people with several chronic illnesses, Berenson said.
About 5 percent of enrollees account for 43 percent of all health-care spending in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people ages 65 and older and some younger disabled Americans, he said.
''We have a real opportunity . . . to get some hold over this, to improve quality and reduce costs,'' Berenson said.
These are the ''Nine for '09'' points that Summa is promoting as the health-care reform debate heats up:
• Make prevention of illness and disease a priority.
• Use a mix of public and private solutions and insist on individual responsibility to ensure health coverage for everyone.
• Do a better job of controlling health-care costs by coordinating care across health and social boundaries.
• Boost investment in research aimed at improving everyday health-care delivery.
• Recruit more nurses and primary-care doctors to avoid a shortage within the next couple of decades.
• Move medicine into the 21st century by switching to electronic medical records and other health information technology that reduces errors.
• Prepare to care for the aging population by recruiting and realigning health-care professional recruitment, training and practice models to serve older adults.
• Mandate a community benefit standard that requires publicly traded insurance companies to provide an appropriate level of charity care, community investment and medical education.
• Provide health-care consumers more information about the quality and outcomes at hospitals and doctor practices.
Summa's leaders plan to share these points with government leaders and policymakers on a state and national level, Summa board chair Tom Knoll said in an interview.
Strauss also defended Summa's plans to build a 100-bed, for-profit hospital in northern Summit County in partnership with local doctors.
Critics passed out fliers against the proposed hospital to people as they drove into the library's parking garage.
The flier, although not signed, repeated many of the claims made by cross-town rival Akron General Medical Center that the new hospital will ''cherry-pick'' insured patients and threaten nonprofit hospitals.
But Strauss said the new facility will have the same Summa standards and extend charity care to northern Summit and southern Cuyahoga counties.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com.
An Akron-based hospital system is trying to inject a local voice into the growing national debate about how to cover the uninsured and bring down medical costs for everyone.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Sterling, Oh
Posted 09:20 AM, 10/07/2008
The only cure for health care is: Demand every corporation, farmer, business, outsourcer sweatshop, and nonprofit, tax-exempt, organization and Church markets the cost in the wholesale and retail price of his or her product and service. Of every workers, consumers, and taxpayers living (including pension and health care). Enabling parents to love, nurse, nurture, discipline, protect, and provide, for every child (job) they conceive and fund schools, infrastructure, national security, government services, and etc.; with money derived from wages or independent business profit.
Posted 09:29 AM, 10/07/2008
Summa is looking out for Summa, and the bottom line is money.
