Grand Rounds Hosted Here Next Week
Next week’s Grand Rounds will be hosted here at Envisioning 2.0 on Tuesday, January 30.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be hosting the venerable and well-regarded blog carnival Grand Rounds next week. I’m very honored that Nicholas Genes provided me with the opportunity to highlight some of the best writing in the healthcare blogosphere.
From reading Grand Rounds, I understand that some people love themes while others hate them. Despite this, I’ve decided to focus on a theme because I’m very interested in hearing from the blogosphere about healthcare consumerism or consumer directed healthcare. As many of you may know, President Bush will be unveiling a new healthcare proposal during his State of the Union speech this evening. Early reports indicate that he is interested in encouraging people to purchase individual insurance plans via tax breaks. Whether his proposal lives or dies, it is clear that consumerism – asking patients to take greater control of their medical spending and decision making – is alive and well.
So, fellow healthcare bloggers, I’d like to hear from you on this subject. Please submit posts that address:
-Your views on the healthcare consumerism movement
-Whether you think it will solve the economic, treatment and societal problems associated with healthcare
-Your experiences with it as a patient, provider, policy wonk, student or otherwise
Adhering to this theme, of course, is not required. I’ll find a way to include your submission. Please note: I’ll be choosing 25 posts to include in this edition. Following are directions on how to submit your post:
-Submissions are due by midnight (EST), Sunday January 28
-Please do not submit any posts promoting a product or service
-Please use Grand Rounds as the subject of your e-mail
-Include the link to your post in your e-mail and a short 2-3 line description of your submission
-Please review the Grand Rounds guidelines prior to submitting your post
-E-mail your posts to envisioning AT envisionsolutionsnow DOT com
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you all.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am
You’ve asked for me to comment on the healthcare consumer movement; whether it will solve economic, treatment, and societal healthcare problems; and on my personal experiences with the consumer movement.
Here goes.
1. The consumer movement will prevail. Why? Because everything else has failed to stem costs and to rationalize care. Medicare has failed. Managed care has failed. Self-funded employers have failed. The only alternatives left are cost-conscious consumers spending their own money, or a government single payer system. Our culture is not likely to accept the latter.
2. Will consumerism solve healthcare problems? Not all at once, but perhaps in the long run. Market-based solutions lurch forward in bursts and reverses– incrementally and experimentally. An HSA, HRA, and FSA here. A high deductible or high co-pay there. A tax system tweak here. A tax subsidy there. A specific comprehesnive consumer-oriented website here. An consumer awakening to inexhaustible Internet-rich health information there. A technological innovation here. A political setback there. But always forward the market goes.
3. My personal experience? As a practicing physician in Minneapolis, I was present at the at the creation at one of the centers of the HMO movement and of United Healthcare. I predicted physician-punishing and patient-depriving HMOs would ultimately fail (And Who Shall Care for the Sick? The Corporate Transformation of Medicine in Minnesota, Media Medicus, 1988). Doctors and patients, I said, would rebel. I saw first hand how powerful market forces could be — how they could force Mayo to set up satellite sites in Jacksonville and Scottsdale, close multiple Twin Cities hospitals, force Minnesota doctors into economic servitude, push the Univesity of Minnesota hospital into economic retreat and into an unwelcomed acquisition by a community health system. Based on these and subsequent experiences, I believe market-based innovations - HSAs, high deductible health plans, technological innovations, and cost-sensitive consumers — will, for better or worse, be stronger change agents for lowering costs and rationalizing care than government. Our capitalistic culture demands individual freedom and choice. The market is more likely to provide these attributes than government.
This submission argues healthcare market forces are more powerful and more likely to prevail than a government single-payer system. My blog is http;//www.medinnovationblog.blogspot.com
January 27th, 2007 at 11:58 am
1. You’ve asked for me to comment on the healthcare consumer movement; whether it will solve economic, treatment, and societal healthcare problems; and on my personal experiences with the consumer movement.
Here goes.
1. The consumer movement will prevail. Why? Because everything else has failed to stem costs and to rationalize care. Medicare has failed. Managed care has failed. Self-funded employers have failed. The only alternatives left are cost-conscious consumers spending their own money, or a government single payer system. Our culture is not likely to accept the latter.
2. Will consumerism solve healthcare problems? Not all at once, but perhaps in the long run. Market-based solutions lurch forward in bursts and reverses– incrementally and experimentally. An HSA, HRA, and FSA here. A high deductible or high co-pay there. A tax system tweak here. A tax subsidy there. A specific comprehensive consumer-oriented website here. A consumer awakening to inexhaustible Internet-rich health information there. A technological innovation here. A political setback there. But always forward the market goes.
3. My personal experience? As a practicing physician in Minneapolis, I was present at the at the creation at one of the centers of the HMO movement and of United Healthcare. I predicted physician-punishing and patient-depriving HMOs would ultimately fail (And Who Shall Care for the Sick? The Corporate Transformation of Medicine in Minnesota, Media Medicus, 1988). Doctors and patients, I said, would rebel. I saw first hand how powerful market forces could be — how they could force Mayo to set up satellite sites in Jacksonville and Scottsdale, close multiple Twin Cities hospitals, force Minnesota doctors into economic servitude, push the University of Minnesota hospital into economic retreat and into an unwelcome acquisition by a community health system. Based on these and subsequent experiences, I believe market-based innovations - HSAs, high deductible health plans, technological innovations, and cost-sensitive consumers — will, for better or worse, be stronger change agents for lowering costs and rationalizing care than government. Our capitalistic culture demands individual freedom and choice. The market is more likely to provide these attributes than government.
This submission argues healthcare market forces are more powerful and more likely to prevail than a government single-payer system. My blog is http;//www.medinnovationblog.blogspot.com
January 29th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Dr. Reece:
Thanks for your comment. Please be sure to check back tomorrow for more on this topic.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
[…] Last week, I asked readers of Grand Rounds to submit posts about consumer-driven healthcare. One of the reasons I decided to focus on this issue was because President Bush made healthcare a major focus of his State of the Union address last week. In what some might call a policy wonk’s dream speech he made a proposal that (if it became law) would begin the long and difficult process of decoupling health insurance from employment. One potential consequence of providing tax breaks for health insurance would be that some uninsured individuals may be encouraged to purchase it. […]
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
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March 27th, 2007 at 4:56 am
[…] Next week’s host has clearly been keeping up with the ‘theme’ issue, and wants one, but isn’t being exclusive about it (good marketing!). […]