A Private Sector Approach to Health Reform

by Lane Beattie, President and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber

Many have heard the admonition that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. The business community arrived at this fork earlier this year when it became clear that state-government-lead health system reform would take time. We support Gov. Huntsman and the Legislature’s efforts to enact meaningful reform and will take significant steps in the private sector to achieve substantive progress and will be an active participant in the process. At the same time, we in the business community have been asking what we can do privately to reform a broken system. Utah businesses can no longer afford the staggering increases in health care premiums. The Salt Lake Chamber joins other Utahns in calling for a more sensible and sustainable system that will contain costs, expand access, and improve medical outcomes.

The problem is clear. The U.S. faces an economic imperative to reform health care because of skyrocketing costs, inadequate access to care, and dubious quality. These problems are linked and cannot be addressed in isolation. If we don’t act, the broken and unsustainable system will ultimately threaten our economic competitiveness as a state and nation.

The Salt Lake Chamber desires to reduce costs by expanding accountability at all levels of the health system – patients, providers, purchasers, payers and political leaders. We support efforts to move from a health payment system that is based primarily on a defined benefit, to a system that is based primarily on defined contributions. By doing so, every Utahn will take more personal responsibility for their health and costs will be reduced.

We have identified a prescription for progress that will be our private sector approach to heath system reform. Here is that prescription.

• Lead by doing
  The Chamber will adopt a benefits’ plan for its employees that encourages personal responsibility, rewards healthy behaviors, and properly aligns incentives. We are proud to offer health insurance to all of our employees and encourage other entities to consider the cost-saving benefits of signing up with consumer-directed policies.
• Help small businesses to secure health coverage
  The Chamber has partnered with Humana, one of the nation’s leading consumer-driven health insurance companies, to offer Chamber members with 2 to 99 employees consumer-directed health benefits at discounted prices.
• Host member-to-member health care forums
  The Chamber will host educational forums to inform our members about the latest innovations in consumer-driven health care. Topics include health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, small business health plans, health information technology, hybrid insurance policies, and other timely topics.
• Create a health reform rump group
  The Chamber will create a private sector health policy rump group to advise business, community and political leaders on the policy options that are available to transform the health system. Rump groups take their name from the Rump Parliament, which served in mid-17th Century England during a time of transition and economic difficulty. In a like manner, the Chamber’s health policy rump group will provide policy guidance to reform Utah’s health system.
• Support other community efforts for health reform
  The Chamber will support other like-minded reform efforts to contain health care costs. These include initiatives such as the legislative Health Reform Task Force, Chartered Value Exchange (one of Sec. Leavitt’s initiatives to help states implement value-driven health care), and U-SHARE (broad coalition of consumer groups). We also support other business associations in their work to reform Utah’s health system.
• Form a Utah Business Health Alliance
  The Chamber will work with member entities to create a purchasing coalition of like-minded employers that will use their purchasing power to shift the Utah health care market towards consumer-driven health plans. Creation of this Alliance will be a multi-year process.

As Utah’s business leader, the Chamber will follow this prescription to effect meaningful change in our health care system during the coming year. We view this prescription as a work in progress, subject to continual refinement by our executive team and the Chamber Board of Governors. We welcome your comments regarding this critical issue.