Click here to watch the video of our June 25th forum at the National Press club.

The forum focused on financing options to reduce health care costs and improve access.

You can download the full study discussed at the forum here.

Experts Consider Financing Options for Health System Change at Better Health Care Together Forum Today

Washington, DC (June 25) – Health reform is an imperative and financing changes could be the catalyst needed, according to non-partisan and bi-partisan policy experts along with business and union leaders at a Better Health Care Together forum today.

"Changing the way health care is financed could have a major impact on our health insurance system," according to the authors of a Bipartisan Policy Center study titled “Financing the U.S. Health System: Issues and Options for Change,” released at today's event. “New financing approaches could affect health spending in several ways, by changing where people get health insurance, the nature of the health coverage they buy, transparency and awareness of pricing, and the share of health spending borne by government.”

The study describes recently proposed approaches to finance health care including current financing and more effective health spending, rolling back high-income tax cuts, modifying the current tax exclusion for health benefits, a play-or-pay model, and a value-added tax. Their implications on individuals, employers, and the health system are explored.

Click here to read the complete analysis.

The study was authored by Meena Seshamani, Jeanne M. Lambrew, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress – also a member of Better Health Care Together; and Joseph R. Antos, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Panel on “Trends in Employer Sponsored Health Coverage” at the “Prepare for Launch: Health Reform Summit 2008”

Washington, DC – Today, Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corporation and Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees Union International (SEIU), two members of Better Health Care Together (www.betterhealthcaretogether.org), testified at the Senate Committee on Finance’s event, “Prepare for Launch: Health Reform Summit 2008: Trends in Employer Sponsored Health Coverage.”

Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation, laid out a comprehensive approach to tackle the health care challenge from the perspective of a major employer. His testimony detailed his thoughts on modernizing communication in healthcare, changing the reimbursement model, the importance of wellness & prevention, and Dossia – the innovative non-profit organization initiated by a consortium of large US employers for the purpose of creating a national system to deliver lifelong, personal, private, and portable health records for their employees. Barrett also talked about the need for health IT solutions as well as the need for home based healthcare solutions.

Stated Barrett: “As Congress prepares for the critical debate on healthcare, employers will take market based actions as large consumers to drive patient-centered care based on outcomes, not numbers of visits, consultations, and institutional visits. We share healthcare responsibility with the government and agree that a collaborative approach is likely to yield the most fruit. But let’s agree on the problem we want to solve, the roadmap to get there and how to channel the national passion toward real improvements in the health and lives of our citizens,” he concluded.

Andy Stern, President of SEIU, spoke about the work SEIU’s to educate elected leaders on the importance and necessity of fixing our broken health care system. He outlined the imperative to fix health care for the future, from the perspective of the employee.

Stern said, “In 2009, Congress has a clear choice to make. You must decide to make fixing health care a top priority and an urgent priority. The effort must be bipartisan, with the kind of leadership that was demonstrated in the “No Child Left Behind” law. It must be incorporated into your budget and chosen over expiring tax cuts for the wealthy. You must resist the pressure to legislate every detail.

 Click here to download Andy Stern's full statement.
 Click here to download Craig Barrett's full statement.

PLEASE JOIN US:

Financing Health Care Forum
Moderated by: Laurie McGinley, Wall Street Journal

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
When: 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Where: National Press Club, The Zenger Room
_________________________________________________________

Forum sponsored by:

Better Health Care Together

This forum will focus on financing options to reduce health care costs and improve access. A paper on financing options will be presented and discussed by the current and former directors of the Congressional Budget Office and health policy experts from business, labor, and think tanks.

There is no charge for this event.
_______________________________________________________

Introduction:

MARK McCLELLAN, Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform

CHRIS JENNINGS, Jennings Policy Strategies

Paper Presented by:

JEANNE LAMBREW, Center for American Progress

JOSEPH ANTOS, American Enterprise Institute

MEENA SESHAMANI, Johns Hopkins University

Panelists:

PETER R. ORSZAG, Ph.D., Director, Congressional Budget Office

ROBERT D. REISCHAUER, Ph.D., President, the Urban Institute

STUART M. BUTLER, Ph.D., Vice President, Domestic and Economic Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation

ELLEN BLACKLER, Executive Director, Public Policy, AT&T Services Inc.

LOUISE NOVOTNY, Research Director, Communications Workers of America
________________________________________________________

Please RSVP to: ExecDirector@betterhealthcaretogether.org
Click here to download a .pdf version of the invitation.

By: Jeanne Cummings
June 10, 2008
URL: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10965.html

Beyond the war in Iraq, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have another big disagreement: how to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

Obama offers a plan that seeks to transform the way chronic diseases are managed to reduce costs, requires insurance coverage for children and opens up the private health plans used by federal employees to those who can’t get coverage elsewhere.

McCain’s plan is equally ambitious but veers in a decidedly different direction. His long-term goal is to decouple health insurance and the job market. He won’t ban employer-based coverage, but he wants to give people tax breaks to purchase their own health insurance, which would follow them from job to job or provide coverage to those who stay at home.

The emergence of health care as a major presidential campaign talking point marks a striking comeback for an issue deemed politically radioactive for more than a decade.

It’s a second act won in part by the rising cost of care; the aging — and diminishing health — of our society; and a heckuva lot of hard work and ground grading by scores of people, some of whom stood against each other during the last big health care debate.

In recent years, more than a half-dozen deep-pocketed, big-name coalitions have been formed to push health care back onto the national agenda in Congress and in the White House.

Among them are:

The Partnership to Fight Chronic Diseases, which has spent the past year meeting with presidential candidates’ advisers to offer policy ideas for overhauling the health care system. The partnership has broad industry backing and is bipartisan — its two leaders are Ken Thorpe, a former Clinton White House adviser, and Mark McClellan, a former Bush White House health official.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by former Senate leaders Bob Dole of Kansas, Howard Baker of Tennessee, Tom Daschle of South Dakota and George Mitchell of Maine — two Republicans and two Democrats, respectively — to develop bipartisan solutions to health care and other issues. It could be a key player in trying to bridge the partisan differences on Capitol Hill.

Better Health Care Together, which joins labor unions with business partners such as Wal-Mart and AT&T.

The Partnership for Quality Care, which is an association of health care providers and labor unions, and combines the strength and brainpower of management and workers.

The Health Care Coalition for the Uninsured, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, hospitals, insurers and drug makers. The group worked hard last year on children’s health insurance and is now being revived for next year’s battle.

The Coalition to Advance Health Care Reform, an association of 50 business leaders who are advocating for market-based changes.

Divided We Fail, formed by unlikely allies AARP, the Service Employees International Union, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business. The group has also tapped Hollywood to recruit marquee names to urge federal action.

The work of these organizations is supplemented by many other more specialized groups, ranging from the Campaign for Children’s Health Care to the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association to hospital and physician organizations.

By Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
Posted on May 21, 2008, Printed on May 21, 2008
URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/85947/

If health insurance were cheap, we could all buy it. If universal health care could get 60 votes in the Senate, we'd all have it. But these two imperatives -- the need to control costs and the need to attract the 60 Senate votes required to overcome a filibuster -- point in opposite directions. This is the central paradox of health reform.

The most intractable policy problem is not, fundamentally, the 47 million uninsured or the fact that insurers have a business model right out of Dickens. It's cost. In 2006, the average family policy cost $13,600. This is why one out of six Americans are uninsured; they can't afford the premiums. An October 2007 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that more Americans were "very worried" about being priced out of their health insurance than feared losing their job, their house, or being in a terrorist attack. And with good reason: Premiums have gone up 98 percent since 2000. Wages have not.

Corporate America's outlook is similarly grim. Better Health Care Together, a health-reform coalition that includes Intel, Wal-Mart, and General Mills, recently issued a report, Health-Cost Crossroad: Why American Businesses Urgently Need Health Care Reform. The paper warns that "health care cost growth threatens businesses, workers, and the overall health of the American economy," and frets that "if trends continue, health benefit costs will exceed profits in Fortune 500 companies in 2008."

WisEye.org has just posted video from our recent health care summit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

You can watch it, or listen to it, by clicking here.

By Samantha Hernandez
4/25/2008
URL: http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=124568

MILWAUKEE -- U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, said today that he will introduce legislation to bring more transparency to the health care system and allow it to evolve with the market.

“I think a government-centered system is a wrong approach,” Ryan said during a panel discussion on health care reform that focused on the direction of the industry in Wisconsin.

He went on to say that the next five years will determine where the country goes with health care and that the current system is built for inflation.

“The reason you see an incredible markup is because they can,” Ryan said. He wants patients to be the nucleus of the system.

Ryan gave opening remarks at the forum, which included one panel discussion on a business perspective on the need for health care reform and a second from a policy perspective. It was sponsored by Better Health Care Together, a national coalition of major U.S. corporations, labor unions, non-profit organizations and other groups trying to build momentum for a new health care system in America by 2012.

Corporations, unions brainstorm on reform ideas

By GUY BOULTON
gboulton@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 25, 2008
URL: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=743844

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Service Employees International Union aren't likely allies. Nor are AT&T Inc. and the Communication Workers of America.

They are all among members of Better Health Care Together, a coalition formed to build support for significant, structural reform of the health care system.

"We can't fix something like this by playing around the fringes," said Jeff Joerres, CEO of Manpower Inc., a coalition member.

The coalition held what it billed as a "regional discussion" Friday at Manpower's corporate headquarters in Milwaukee.

What was striking about the coalition is its members, and their apparent willingness to talk - and even listen - to each other.

"We don't always agree with one another," said Mary Kay Henry, executive vice president of the SEIU. "But we know we are never going to solve this problem until we sit down and work it out."

Why American Businesses Urgently Need to Fix the Health System

Our latest issue brief describes how the problems in the health system affect U.S. businesses; how this situation affects workers and families; and why a fix is needed by 2012. It also includes a Spotlight on Wisconsin, highlighting the State’s unique strengths and challenges.

Click here to download the full issue brief.