By Evan Falchuk
This afternoon, I saw Paul Dennet, SVP of Health Reform at the American Benefits Council. His topic was about where we are going with health care reform. Dennet said we should take note of how far we have already come — the President and Congress already enacted significant health care reforms in the stimulus bill, including the health care IT and COBRA provisions. Dennet said that he thinks that there is a better chance now than ever before for there to be enacted health care reform, since most everyone is in favor of it. Still, he said, that’s easy to say now because no one knows what “reform” actually means yet.
Dennet’s view on what is going to happen is that bills will make their way through the Senate first. The biggest obstacles are where the money is going to come from to pay for ambitious reform, noting that half of the $600 bilion the President has proposed spending would come from a tax that the leading Democratic committee chairmen are against. He sees a real possibility that employer contributions may end up being taxed, since that is the only comparably big chunk of tax revenue available. Dennet expects this process to heat up in the second half of the year.
After this, I went to a session called “Community Based Health Care — New Approaches, New Partnerships.” At this session, Chris McCarthy of Bath Iron Works described his fascinating efforts to improve the quality of care in the state of Maine. Chris helped create a coalition of employers, providers and others to, in his words, “disrupt the payment structure” of health care in Maine. In his view, if the way we pay for care is leading to the results we see, then we have to change the way we pay to a way that incentivises doctors to spend time with their patients and deliver high quality care. He presented some interesting data on his results. He seems to be on to something that should be watched as a trend for the future. Chris isn’t just in benefits — at lunch, from a distance of several miles, he was able to identify a Bath Iron Works destroyer cruising off-shore.
My presentation followed lunch, so I had the privilege of talking to a crowd of people with full stomachs. I was on with George McGregor from Southern California Schools VEBA, a long-time client with whom I presented last week in Washington, DC. It was a well-attended session in the so-called Grande Hall (by the way, the Hotel del Coronado is gorgeous and historic). The presentation went well, and I will blog about the data presented later.
Overall this event is heavily attended. The Conference Board has done a terrific job with the program and logistics, and people here seem to be enjoying it.
