The Real Problem in Health Care (Hint – It’s Not a Website)
During the last two months, there’s been no shortage of discussion about the challenges facing the launch of the federal health exchange website, Healthcare.gov.
Despite all the noise about the initial issues with Healthcare.gov, we can’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. It’s important to remember that the Affordable Care Act was never intended to just be about a website. It was about helping to ensure that Americans have access to health care coverage.
While Healthcare.gov is a key element in helping to usher in a new era of health care, let’s not let the challenges with its launch steer us off course.
A New Law
Long before the launch of the Affordable Care Act, Humana believed that all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care coverage. While the ACA does not do enough to address rising costs, it does contain many positive, important reforms.
Notably, the health care law removes pre-existing condition limitations as a barrier to coverage and provides financial assistance for those who qualify. Helping people obtain coverage is the right thing to do. When people don’t have access to health care, they delay doing what they need to do. That prevents them from living life fully and becomes more costly later on.
We all know that enabling people to sign up for health care coverage to avoid these types of situations is one thing. Getting them on the path to a healthy lifestyle is quite another.
To underscore that point, let’s take a closer look at some issues – and opportunities – in the state of Mississippi.
A State in Crisis
Mississippi faces significant health challenges. It ranks first in the number of people living in poverty and last in household income among all 50 states. It is also tied with Louisiana as the least healthy state in the nation.
Earlier this year, Humana went where other insurers wouldn’t go. We expanded our health plan offering on the individual health exchange to cover 40 counties in Mississippi, 36 of which did not have a single insurance carrier on the federal exchange until we committed. Individuals who are eligible for subsidies wouldn’t have had any options if Humana hadn’t entered these 36 counties.
There is an old saying: sometimes the greatest risk is not taking one. The opportunity to positively impact these communities and apply what we learn to other areas in our country facing similar challenges clearly outweighs the risks.
What We’ve Seen
One of our first steps in Mississippi has been to reach out to community and health policy leaders, churches, state and local government officials, non-governmental organizations, civic clubs, businesses and community action organizations. A high level of community engagement and collaboration is necessary to make a real difference.
On the educational side, our initial approach has been to reach people where they live, in their day-to-day lives. We launched a bus tour – Covering Mississippi – which is designed to go to the counties where we’re participating in the exchange and answer questions people have about health care.
These initial conversations clearly illustrate the challenges we face. While Mississippians have plenty of questions about the health care law, they also are not sure how it can really help them.
Where We Go
Make no mistake: Helping Mississippi become a healthier state will require a multi-year approach that forces us to rethink routine and experiment with new ideas. More people need to be on the ground helping people understand what steps they can take to improve their health. We have a lot of work to do in Mississippi, and I’ll continue to share what we learn along the way.
Neither Humana nor the government can do it alone. In order to truly thrive together, we’ll need a trusted, collaborative partnership that involves everyone – federal, state and local governments; insurers; community groups; religious organizations and individuals.
We must not be afraid to challenge ourselves if we are to truly make an impact. We all share a responsibility to help educate, provide resources and motivate people to live healthier lives.
High School Teacher
9 年Bravo to Humana
Valet at Towne Park
10 年I'm not sure what difference it makes to talk about the cost of health care when health care itself is the problem. We live in a country where the government is still telling us that marijuana is illegal while telling us that we can smoke cigarettes (aka cyanide, aka rat poison) and drink alcohol which contribute to 400k and 2mil deaths a year, respectively. Marijuana has been shown to have significant use medicinally. Have you guys seen that CNN report by Sanjay Gupta, the former nominee for surgeon general? Weed is not the problem it's the answer. Maybe that is why the government took out a patent (Patent No. 6,630,507) on cannabinoids which is the medicinal compound in weed. So they patented weed while fighting weed? Oh and by the way we have cannabinoid receptors in our brains, but this stuff is bad for us? Hmmm... Or how about things like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) which have been shown to help people who are suffering from psychological issues like PTSD. John Hopkins University and UF both did studies on the effects of psilocybin and they both basically came to the conclusion that shrooms have the potential to revolutionize psycho pharmacology. And then there is DMT but that is a discussion for another thread (do yourself a favor and look into this, trust me). While I'm on the topic of psychedelics though how about we talk about ibogaine. Here is a hallucinatory compound that has been shown to help people kick their addictions to highly addictive things like heroine and cigarettes.... after just one dose. Guess what, ibogaine is illegal in the U.S. Nothing suspect about that right? Well maybe it doesn't seem suspect until you understand that 90% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan. Who controls Afghanistan? Hmmm... Then there is big pharma. More people die from prescription drugs than heroine and coke COMBINED. Have ya'll seen some of the side effects for these drugs in the commercials? "May cause thoughts of suicide." Really, ya don't say. WTF kind of "medicine" might make you think about killing yourself? Some say it may also cause the reverse, thoughts of aggression. This is interesting when you consider that almost all of these mass shooters were on psychotropic drugs. Hmmm... And it spite of this wall of text that I gave you exposing this "government" for what it really is in regards to health care, this is just scratching the surface (also look into the connection between GMOs and Michael Taylor). Do your research. Educate yourselves. Spread awareness. Lets stop letting these douches in the fancy suits dictate what is good and bad for us, cuz they don't know wtf they're talking about. Wake up... "Condemnation without investigation is the highest form of ignorance." -Albert Einstein
President & CEO, Marketing, Management & Health Care Consulting
10 年Covered California seems to be fairly successful with its marketing campaign and enrollment processes. Their numbers appears to be strong. The availability of health care for the uninsured, subsidized or not is key to getting the community healthy. A healthy community can become a healthy and productive workforce give the jobs are available. Reducing the cost of uncompensated care is huge as emergency room usage diminishes and it is not being used as a routine source of non emergency treatment.
Client Management at LTIMindtree
10 年Having choices helps but a necessary part of the solution included getting the message out to the public through various avenues. Broken websites do matter. Some guys I know in Nashville build a healthcare resource site in about a week. Healthswami.com is a free and educational tool that allows you and your employees to see individual and family government health plan options and calculate monthly subsidies before visiting healthcare.gov. On the government site it takes an average of 30 minutes to see your plan options. Public sector triumph!
Owner/operator at RoadRunner Couriers
10 年So, what is "The Real Problem With Healthcare"? This was not actually addressed in Mr Mr Broussard's message.