Editor’s note: The following is the text of a letter written by Patient Care chief executive officer Jane Cooper to Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker about reforms for the dysfunctional health care system.
Governor-Elect Walker
Congratulations on your victory.
Creating a viable economy for the citizens and business in Wisconsin will take hard choices and hard work.
It will take particularly hard choices and hard work on health care and health care funding.
Medicaid as it currently exists will bankrupt the state. All Medicaid beneficiaries need to have a primary care provider and get sufficient primary care. Other benefits should be reduced.
State employees have benefits that very few taxpayers in the state of Wisconsin have. Insurance benefits for public sector employees should not be richer than the average private sector insurance benefits. Quite frankly, no one should have 100 percent coverage in 2011. Southeastern Wisconsin has health care costs that are among the highest in the entire United States. One proven strategy for reducing the trend of health care costs is employee cost sharing and teaching citizens of this state to become better health care consumers.
We shop for flat screen TVs, we shop for automobiles, we do not shop for elective health care procedures. There is no incentive for doctors and hospitals to provide care at a lower cost and higher quality. Cost and quality information is a mystery to patients.
Five recommendations to tackle health care cost and quality in Wisconsin:
1. Issue regulations and enforce Wisconsin State Assembly Bill 614 and Act 146, the transparency laws passed in 2010.
2. Make health savings account (HSA) contributions tax deductible. Wisconsin is one of the few states that does not allow tax deductibility for these contributions. HSAs are a proven strategy for increasing consumerism in health care purchasing.
3. Re-negotiate benefits for all state employees to include a mandatory deductible and co-insurance, in and out of network.
4. Strictly enforce requirements for eligibility for BadgerCare and other state funded programs so that Wisconsin citizens who have health insurance available through their job are not freeloading on the public programs paid for by the taxpayers.
5. Hold the providers truly accountable for cost effective health care delivery and reward them for doing so
Health care costs are a burden, a runaway train. The solutions must be near term and economic, not political or the taxpayers and businesses will pay the price.
Cordially,
Jane Cooper
President and CEO
Patient Care, Milwaukee
