Quit Wasting My Healthcare

Show me the numbers: cost and quality in healthcare

Drew Altman’s recent article, “Moving Away from Employer Coverage: Don’t Forget Public Opinion” deftly points out that while politicians are actively looking for alternatives to employer based healthcare, the general public is not. In fact, in every study 61% to 83% of employees said moving towards personal insurance would be bad for them.

Drew, President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, leads one of the most responsible channels for healthcare information today. Within the article Drew contrasted Obama’s health plan that focused on more forced accommodation of the uninsured through traditional insurance organizations with the free market and tax incentive emphasis of McCain’s individual coverage proposal. In the end, the article expectedly stays clear of recommending whether or not individual coverage was better than employer based coverage other than to say it was likely that the average voter would not think so.

In my opinion, both coverage mechanisms have merits and satisfy clear needs. Neither mechanism is better than the other or represents a solution to current healthcare challenges. The important component of these proposals is that they create emphasis on individually driven healthcare decisions. Since only patients can decide what level of care or support is valuable to them, they must have a role in assessing the cost and quality of each healthcare decision they make. Only value based care decisions can bring rationality and cost-effectiveness back to the healthcare system.

Instead of trying to decide for us who should pay for healthcare, politicians should help people get the cost and quality information necessary to make that decision for themselves.