Healthcare Reform: Congress Is Blowing Its Chance, Business Benefits Insurance's Edholm Says

ANDOVER, MA--(Marketwire - June 29, 2009) - Congress is botching healthcare reform, says expert Jim Edholm, president of Business Benefits Insurance, in Andover, Mass.

"They're blowing it, 'fixing' stuff that isn't broken and ignoring stuff that is," he says.

A report from one of the nation's leading consultants, McKinsey, says the US needs to focus on three factors: responsible personal health-related decisions, increased market transparency, and simplified administration.

"Heard anything about any of those topics coming out of Washington? Nope, hardly a word," Edholm says.

Professor Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard says fraud alone may be $500 billion per year. Sen. Tom Cockburn (R-OK) says one-third of all spending is in defensive medicine, paperwork and fraud ($800 billion).

Then there's outright stupidity, Edholm says. New York Medicaid recently paid maternity benefits to 55 men. Two hundred thousand Americans a year die from infections and errors that occur in hospitals.

"If we could save half of the fraud ($250 billion/year) and cut the number of unnecessary deaths (hundreds of billions per year), could we solve the problems of the uninsured?"

Only the government can address the cost of helping hospitals correct their errors, eliminate fraud and save lives, according to Edholm. Only the government can mandate transparency in cost and quality reporting to facilitate smarter health consumption by Americans. Only the government can mandate uniform paperwork forms to simplify administration and reduce cost. Only the government can attack the dual task of protecting the rights of the injured while minimizing nuisance suits. Only the government can launch a "stay healthy" program on the scale of the anti-smoking campaigns of the '60s through the '80s.

"Is that what Congress is fixing?" Edholm asks. "No. They're fighting over who's going to pay the bill and whether or not there'll be a 'public plan.' How does the name on the bottom of the check lower the underlying cost? Simplify administration? Increase transparency?

"Right now there are needs that only the government can meet, behaviors that only the government can mandate, and problems that only the government can solve. Let's work on those needs, those problems.

"We have the best healthcare in the world, and I think it makes infinitely more sense to build on what we have by plugging the gaps than it does to totally make it over and hope we get it right."

Business Benefits Insurance (www.bbibenefits.com) is an employee benefits planning firm. Edholm's discussion of healthcare reform on WCAP radio can be heard on the homepage.

Edholm's benefits blog can be read at http://bbibenefits.wordpress.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Henry Stimpson Stimpson Communications 508-647-0705 Henry@StimpsonCommunications.com Jim Edholm Business Benefits Insurance 978-474-4730 jedholm@bbibenefits.com