HCCD Report South Dakota 57730

Attn: Presidential Transition Health Care Policy Team

Dec. 19, 2008

Re: Community Health Care Discussion

December 18^th 2008, Custer, SD

Submitted by: Tanya, moderator

Who Attended

Our group included teachers, retirees, pastors, insurance agents, hospital administrators, physicians, landscape architects, self-employed business people, artists, stay-at-home mothers and realtors. Our group was entirely insured at varying cost.

Our Premise

The group unanimously agreed that our health care payment and delivery system are “broken”. We unanimously agreed that health care is a right, not a privilege.

Our Ideas

Everyone should have access to WHOLE health care: mental, physical, dental, eye health
Uncoupling health care from employers

-for a variety of reasons: pre-existing conditions making it impossible to obtain health care should a person leave their job, confidentiality, the discontinuity and inefficiency of changing providers, the cost to employers.

Create an incentive-based system where good health is rewarded. Poor health can never be penalized as it is not always behavior-based.

Individuals would be rewarded for health improvements / healthy lifestyle
Medical professionals would be rewarded for improving the health of their clients
Hospitals would be rewarded for healthier communities
Employers would be rewarded for healthier employees – the idea here was that all employers would pay a health care tax (yikes did we say taxes?) but this tax would be refunded if the employer provides certain healthy lifestyle options.
Producers of foods / products contributing to major chronic health conditions would be taxed accordingly, for example: the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup is a contributing factor to the rise in type II diabetes in children. Foods containing corn syrup / processed should NOT be the cheapest foods available and most accessible to people in poverty. We realize this is political thin ice, but that is our idea.

Health care education programs borrowing marketing strategies from the most successful commercial sales campaigns (got milk?, etc.)

Use the best marketing companies and individuals, following in the footsteps of ‘give a hoot, don’t pollute’ and seat belt use campaigns.

Start in public schools.

Increase ‘ask a nurse’ hotlines to help reduce emergency room and unnecessary visits (this could be part of local hospitals’ contribution to community health.)
Standardization of information technology, medical records, provider enrollment, client (patient) access to their own medical records electronically, etc.

We thought this would be a good place for govt. to step with regulations requiring standardization (if it is decided to try to overhaul the existing system instead of throw it out and start over.)

More options in health care providers; bring midwives, acupuncturists, and other complimentary providers into the system with nationalized LICENSURE to help provide wholistic health. Provide evidence-based care.

See next page for conclusions…

Our Conclusions

We are not convinced that the current system is worth saving.
We are not afraid of “socialized” health care. The hospital administrator and insurance agent in our group pointed out the 50% of their billables are already socialized in the form of medicare!
We recommend looking at American systems that work (Mayo Clinic) and other countries who have systems that work (Canada) and create a new system based on these principles:
- Everyone has a right to complete health care
- Efficient, proficient delivery and systematic standardization
- Personal responsibility through incentives with voluntary participation
- Proactive health care policy