Top 10 Concepts

George C. Halvorson, Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, knows that the solution to America's complex health care crisis involves everyone with a stake in it – patients, providers, purchasers, brokers, insurers, and elected officials. His book clearly and thoughtfully looks at the factors that contribute to the nation's rising costs and variable quality and proposes a solution that only a seasoned health care leader could generate. The author convincingly argues that the U.S. finally has what it needs to make universal coverage a reality and lays out a plan to get us there. That plan includes these top ten concepts:

1. Health care costs are unevenly distributed.
   There are five chronic diseases that account for 75 percent of all health care expenditures.
   
   
2. Economic incentives significantly influence health care.
   There are 9,000+ billing codes for procedures and not a single billing code for a cure.
   
   
3. There is almost a total lack of systems thinking in health care.
   Currently, there are no uniform standards or measurements of performance.
   
   
4. Data is the missing link in health care reform.
   Presently 90 percent of all medical records are on paper. We need electronic medical records.
   
   
5. Care must be improved and costs lowered for patients with chronic diseases.
   Managing an asthmatic patient only costs hundreds of dollar per year while one emergency room visit for urgent intervention could cost upwards of $20,000.
   
   
6. Eight recent developments make health care reform achievable NOW.
   We currently have a “perfect storm” brewing politically, socially, medically, and economically that can lead to reform now.
   
   
7. Buyers and Infrastructure Vendors (IVs) are critical to making the marketplace work for health care.
   Health care reform needs to become a product to succeed. Vendors are needed to create and sell that product.
   
   
8. The new health care infrastructure requires a business model and a key player to do the heavy lifting that will result in real reform in each market.
   
   
9. Universal coverage should be mandated for individuals, and should be accomplished now.
   Every American should be covered by health insurance with free coverage for those who can’t afford to pay.
   
   
10. We should not simply copy health reform from other countries but we should develop with a unique American model.
    Every industrialized country has found its own unique path to universal coverage. America will be no different.