Health co-ops

One of the potential flaws in a "public option" which even this supporter of the public option worries about comes from the tendency to place all responsibility for one's health in a system.  If you don't have incentives to take care of yourself, your health won't be very good and you're going to cost yourself and/or everyone else a lot of money.

When you're part of a cooperative, "contribute" doesn't mean feeding greedy corporations more than you can afford.  It means making healthy decisions even when they don't give you an immediate taste thrill or allow you endless rope in your "life-style."  Bad choices are felt immediately in your wallet area as well as your neighbors' and friends' accounts.

So even though the thought of compromising in the issue of  "public option," there is a certain amount of sense in incorporating some principles of  successful health co-ops. 

Like the one in Puget Sound -- a health co-op which has already adopted electronic health records -- a change which gives your doctor more time to sit down and listen you.

"I surprise my patients by asking, ‘Is there anything else you want to talk about today?’ ” said Dr. Shriver, chief of a clinic near Seattle run by Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. “They’ve never heard a doctor say that.” Dr. Shriver has the time because Group Health, one of the country’s few surviving health insurance cooperatives, has recently embraced electronic medical records and a collaborative model of primary care, allowing him to practice proactive medicine for the first time in years. ...

That, in itself, makes the relationship between doctor and patient much more productive.  Another important factor is being part of a system whose size tends to keep administration and costs down.

... “There’s a kind of accountability to the patients in our system,” said Scott Armstrong, president of Group Health. “And when you bring the principles of a cooperative to bear, patients feel responsibility for holding the system together and for their own health.”

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Henry Waxman, who seems to have no use for health co-ops, gave an interesting hour-long interview on the Diane Rehm show this morning on how things are progressing in Congress.  He's optimistic about the healthcare bill -- certainly as far as the House goes -- and is candid about the pressures trying to prevent it.  But not just healthcare: Waxman is low-key and candid about how things have been going in Congress.

Comments

[Emily]

That was a great article by the AP - the ability to have additional time per patient is an often overlooked benefit of EHR programs.