"A Prescription for Progress" The Salt Lake Chamber's health system reform work plan
Our
2008 Work Plan
Background
Utah businesses can no longer afford the staggering increases in health care premiums. The Salt Lake Chamber joins other Utahns in calling for a more sensible and sustainable system that will contain costs, expand access, and improve medical outcomes. We support Gov. Huntsman and the Legislature’s efforts to enact meaningful reform and will take significant steps in the private sector to achieve substantive progress.
Problem
The U.S. faces an economic imperative to reform health care because of skyrocketing costs, inadequate access to care, and dubious quality. These problems are linked and cannot be addressed in isolation. If we don’t act, the broken and unsustainable system will ultimately threaten our economic competitiveness as a state and nation.
Objectives
The Salt Lake Chamber desires to reduce costs by expanding accountability at all levels of the health system – patients, providers, purchasers, payers and political leaders. We support efforts to move from a health payment system that is based primarily on a defined benefit, to a system that is based primarily on defined contributions. By doing so, every Utahn will take more personal responsibility for their health and costs will be reduced.
Prescription for Progress
In the coming year, the Chamber will follow this prescription to help Utah transition to a more consumer-driven health care system.
Lead by doing
The Chamber will adopt a benefits’ plan for its employees that encourages personal responsibility, rewards healthy behaviors, and properly aligns incentives. We are proud to offer health insurance to all of our employees and encourage other entities to consider the cost-saving benefits of signing up with consumer-directed policies.
Help small businesses to secure health coverage
The Chamber has partnered with Humana, one of the nation’s leading consumer-driven health insurance companies, to offer Chamber members with two to 99 employees consumer-directed health benefits at discounted prices.
Host member-to-member health care forums
The Chamber will host educational forums to inform our members about the latest innovations in consumer-driven health care. Topics include health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, small business health plans, health information technology, hybrid insurance policies, and other timely topics.
Create a health reform rump group
The Chamber will create a private sector health policy rump group to advise business, community and political leaders on the policy options that are available to transform the health system. Rump groups take their name from the Rump Parliament, which served in mid-17th Century England during a time of transition and economic difficulty. In a like manner, the Chamber’s health policy rump group will provide policy guidance to reform Utah’s health system.
Support other community efforts for health reform
The Chamber will support other like-minded reform efforts to contain health care costs. These include initiatives such as the legislative Health Reform Task Force, Chartered Value Exchange (one of Sec. Leavitt’s initiatives to help states implement value-driven health care), and U-SHARE (broad coalition of consumer groups). We also join other business associations in their work to reform Utah’s health system.
Form a Utah Business Health Alliance
The Chamber will work with member entities to create a purchasing coalition of like-minded employers that will use their purchasing power to shift the Utah health care market towards consumer-driven health plans. Creation of this Alliance will be a multi-year process.
Next Steps
As Utah’s business leader, the Chamber will follow this prescription to effect meaningful change in our health care system during the coming year. We view this prescription as a work in progress, subject to continual refinement by the Chamber Board and Executive Team, and invite your comment.
Learn more about the process and
proposals for Health Care System Reform in Utah:
