CEO sees health care as fixable issue
With the Obama administration vowing to reform the health care system, Kai Ryssdal talks with Health Net CEO Jay Gellert about how much the health industry is willing to change.
Health Net CEO Jay Gellert (Courtesy of HealthNet)
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EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Who: Health Net President and CEO Jay Gellert.
Education: Gellert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University.
Comments
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From Brooklyn, NY, 01/28/2009
Stanley Richardson is EXACTLY correct. Gellert repeatedly reffered to "certain populations" that the Gov would be dealing with. My guess would be: 1. People that can't afford to private ins. 2. People that H.Ins. companies can't afford to pay for. What a profoundly "breakthrough" concept... he's proposing gov. backed universal coverage for everyone outside of their business model. What a great idea. For his industry only! jk
01/27/2009
As any consumer knows, things are more expensive if you pay a middleman for it, rather than buy from the source. Insurance, is that middleman.
On the flip side, millions of Americans already use single payer insurance--they are military members who got health care when they were in the military. They got good care, unless what they had--like Agent Orange--was a political hot potato.
Check into VA care now, for Iraq and Afganistan veterans with PSTD, Gulf War Syndrome, and unfortunately you get an idea of how the government might handle other health issues some administration might consider to be political hot potatoes--birth control, anyone?
Ultimately, the best way to solve a problem, my father used to tell me, is to not let it happen in the first place. What if we cut down on smoking, eating sugared garbage for foods, et cetera?
From Emeryville, CA, 01/27/2009
Memo to US (pun intended)
We pay highest % of GDP in known universe for healthcare with 16% uncovered.
Priority 1: remove overpaid, evasive CEOs, and cut % paid for admin, 30%, again highest in known universe
Priority 2: Cut pay of specialist MDs, again highest in the world, and stop building specialty hospitals to skim high paid specialty surgeries.
Priority 3: Drug costs
Priority 4: Cut end of life care costs, beginning with national discussion of death, so we all get used to the idea of death
Priority 5: Do something about the cost and duration of medical education. Saddling doctors with debt induces them to think of money first and of themselves as capitalists first. Tangential example. ATLANTIC journalist James Fallows dad, whom he discussed recently on FRESH AIR, became am MD in 2 years, out of necessity, during WWII. Mr. Fallows said nothing about this 'truncated' education causing a lifetime of incompetence and malpractice suits.
From Lafayette, CO, 01/26/2009
In Kay Ryssdal's interview with Jay Gellert, Mr. Gellert tried to make a point that I think was lost on Kay. The problem with current government health care plans is that they only exist by underpaying providers; a practice that leads to doctors and hospitals overcharging private insurance patients to make up the shortfall they suffer when they treat government patients. Currently, about 20% of every private premium dollar goes to prop up underfunded government plans. Any new government plans need to be self supporting with a new tax. Just think how much less we'd all be paying for health insurance if we weren't secretly subsidizing Medicare, Medicaid and the SCHIP plans through this hidden tax on our private premiums. It's called cost shifting.
The only way to bring down health insurance costs and cover everyone is by dealing with the real driver; the cost of care. But, that's more than a 4 minute story.
01/26/2009
Who doesn't see it? Healthcare COSTS have the United States on its knees. The US as a country is becoming less and less competitive... maybe the first reason why outsourcing is so popular is because it frees companies from the huge overhead imposed by healthcare. Free markets are an excellent way of improving service and prices, but when free markets ARE NOT really free markets, when market system are gamed, then something must be done. How is it possible that we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare, almost twice as any Western European nation (they are mostly below 10% of the GDP) and the service/quality is NOT better nor available to everyone. The US has become VERY inefficient (because of failed healthcare and energy policies) and it must either fix itself or suffer the consequences of the very principles it represents.
From Thompson Falls, MT, 01/26/2009
If you listen carefully to this guy, you can hear their plan. Offload all the high-risk, expensive-to-insure individuals on to the government insurance plan, continue to insure and co-incidentally, continue to collect fat premiums from the healthy ones.
Did you notice he really did not give ANY concrete information about their "proposals". How stupid does he think we are?
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