Health care multi-millionaire proposes ‘reform’

Last week experts attended the National Institute of Health Policy meeting in Minneapolis and gave the usual dire warning that the healthcare system will face serious problems in the coming years unless Congress takes action now. Don’t we already have financial problems?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune quoted one of the ‘experts’, former WellPoint insurance Chair and CEO, Leonard Schaffer, who said that we have 8-10 years to avoid the trend of an exploding federal deficit because of an aging population.

And then, he gives his recommendations for change: base payments to physicians and hospitals on the quality of care, make sure that treatments are prescribed based on evidence that they work, and closely monitor technological devices. He said that “everybody is going to have to sacrifice a little bit.”

By their own admission, a big part of the problem is the growing aging population. Along with that population comes record numbers of chronic illnesses, including obesity and its consequences. There are problems of non-compliance with treatment and recommended medications to help control those conditions.

Instead of addressing the problem, Mr. Schaeffer’s approach, and that of the insurance industry and government is to focus instead on micromanaging physicians and trying to tell them how they should treat us. Case managers second guessed doctors decisions and treatment plans. They punish them if they go out of the cookbook guidelines for the welfare of their patient. They penalize physicians for giving what the insurance company decided was too much. You may remember that this was HMOs’ approach in the past. The ones who benefited were insurance companies and their shareholders. The ones who lost were patients and their physicians. The formula being proposed does the same.

In this case, what makes it all even more insulting to me as a patient, and to my physicians, is that the pontificating comes from Mr. Schaeffer whose total compensation in 2002 was over $19 million dollars that year, and who, in 2004, along with that level of compensation, was given $234 million dollars bonus for a merger when WellPoint bought Anthem insurance. “Sacrificing a little bit” has a very different impact for me as a patient, or for my physician than it does for Mr. Schaeffer.

People like Mr. Schaeffer have no credibility when they talk about how to curb health costs – and especially when they nickel and dime physicians while stuffing their own and their company’s pockets. Their purpose is to make money for themselves, the company and the shareholders. UnitedHealth Group publicly estimates earnings of $4.2 billion in 2007. That is over $1 billion in profits in one quarter!

As long as healthcare is run for the benefit of people like Mr. Schaeffer, UnitedHealth Group, and their shareholders, profit will always come first -- at the expense of patients and the physicians who care for them who are supposed to 'sacrifice'. And to me, that is unethical.