HEALTH CARE: MORE WAYS TO SAVE
Overwhelmed, perhaps, by the complexities of the health reform bills working their way through Congress, readers seemed to welcome the chance to consider some concrete cost-saving ideas that can be put into action without waiting for legislation ("10 Ways to Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now," Cover Story, No. 23). Many offered their own suggestions. Here, then, we expand the list to include some of these solutions.
11. Restructure how we teach our future doctors. Young residents today know technology well. Yet they often don't know how to elicit the stories that can avoid the overuse of technology.
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12. Promote the use of medical savings accounts, coupled with high-deductible insurance, so that consumers have an incentive to consider cost when deciding what medical services to buy.
13. You left out the best place to start: tort reform to reduce the size of verdicts by runaway juries and the contingency fees of John Edwards-type trial lawyers.
14. Prohibit doctors from having stakes in facilities that conduct medical tests.
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15. Overseas health providers could become like Toyota () or Honda () and set up businesses in America to provide health care more efficiently.
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16. Fund health-care reform by having a national sales tax on edibles and drinkables: Applying a cost to bad decisions and a savings to good decisions will result in better health and lower costs for all of us.
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17. Create common goals for hospitals and doctors. Hospital-physician alignment will be the key to reform.
Joane Goodroe, Sr. VP, VHA, Irving, Tex.
Copyright 2009 BusinessWeek
