As the health care reform debate moves to Washington ...

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Are Harry and Louise lurking in the larder again, ready to derail federal wellness reform like they did in 1994? Not necessarily. Recent state wellness reform attempts bespeak a changing moral force in which wellness programs can be a valuable ally of insurance enlargement advocates.

With the death of the Schwarzenegger/Núñez wellness reform proposal in California, the wellness insurance enlargement action is likely to travel to Washington. Sens. Barack Obama and Toilet McCain, and cardinal congressional leadership have got indicated they will prosecute important wellness reforms in 2009. Our experience proposes that federal policymakers would be making a large error if they wrote off the wellness coverage industry in those deliberations.

A assortment of states have got pursued cosmopolitan insurance in recent years. Most significantly, Bay State passed cosmopolitan insurance in 2006, and we came close to doing so here in Golden State one twelvemonth later. In both of those instances, wellness programs - rather than blocking insurance enlargement - were among the prima advocates.

The Bay State Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation was widely credited with providing the conceptual model for the bipartizan program that was eventually adopted by the state. In California, six of the state's seven biggest wellness programs worked together on the Schwarzenegger/Núñez proposal. In both states, programs made it clear that we were willing to see limitations - such as as a prohibition on denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions, and bounds on net income and administrative disbursals - that the industry had previously fought.

In both instances, wellness programs did not automatically reject reforms they had previously opposed for two reasons. First, we acknowledge better than anyone the inconvenient truth that the system as it bes today is failing, with record Numbers of uninsured, costs spiraling out of control, and increasing defeat from patients, doctors and employers. Second, we supported reform because state policymakers adopted a combined attack that acknowledged our legitimate concerns. Specifically, they took into concern relationship the followers points:

-- Understand the competitory dynamic: Universal Joint insurance should change the wellness insurance business from one in which wellness programs vie on avoiding hazard to one where we vie on providing the best service at the best price. That passage necessitates an absolutely degree playing field in hazard management. Seemingly minor commissariat may convey catastrophe down the route if they supply gaps for gamesmanship.

-- Trust on our expertise: Ultimately, no 1 is able to supply better counsel on the inside information of how a reform program will work than wellness plans. Our deep apprehension of human behaviour in the coverage marketplace, actuarial expertness and strategical penetrations are valuable assets to policy planners. Obviously, a certain degree of trust is required to be certain that programs are providing advice that functions the public's needs, not simply our own. A healthy duologue can set up that trust and output positive results.

-- Stop demonizing wellness plans. I cognize as well as anyone that our industry is not popular, but attacking us won't work out the job or assist accomplish general agreement for reform. The lion's share of rising wellness attention costs is not the consequence of wellness program net income or inefficiency. Rather, the increasing prevalence of chronic disease, caused in big portion by mediocre wellness wonts and an ageing population, plus the ever-expanding array of new treatments and drugs, are largely responsible for wellness attention cost inflation.

-- Demand shared responsibility: Many wellness programs are willing to have got a share of "skin" in the reform game. But we aren't willing to be the lone 1s paying a price. As long as other sectors of the wellness attention industry - hospitals, drug companies, docs - are taking their chunks as well, many programs may be willing to travel along. But if we are targeted while others are ignored, it will be hard to win our support. Finally, wellness programs have got a corresponding duty to take part in good faith. If we desire a place at the tabular array as our hereafter is being shaped, we necessitate to encompass alteration and expression out for the public interest. If we begin the argument in a defensive crouch, we might just stop it level on our backs. But if we widen a manus of cooperation, it is likely to be grasped.

Bruce Bodaken is president and chief executive officer of Blue Shield of California, a not-for-profit health program based in San Francisco. This op-ed is adapted from an article entitled "Where makes the Insurance Industry Stand on Health Reform Today?" in the May/June issue of Health Affairs.