I just read the latest issue of Employee Benefits News and noticed the article written by the Editor and he talks about the need to share.
What'd you learn in school today? Sharing!
By: David Albertson, Editor
To borrow from the title of a book that was popular some years ago: All I Ever Really Needed to Know about Benefits Management I Learned in Kindergarten.
Aside from the parts about not running with scissors and the value of naps, I would submit that the most valuable lesson for us to retain is sharing. It's a concept even the federal government seems able to grasp, as witnessed by the executive order recently signed by President Bush. It instructs four federal agencies that oversee large health care programs to gather information about the quality and price of care, then share it with one another and program beneficiaries.
Specifically, this enlists administrators of the military health care system, Medicare and Medicaid, the federal employee health benefits program and the Veterans Affairs health system. They are tasked - among other things - with showing beneficiaries the prices agencies pay for comparable procedures, developing compatible computer systems and electronic health records and devising a way to measure quality of care.
Together, those four agencies pick up about 40% of the nation's health care tab. Most of the rest, of course, is paid for in the private sector, where employer-sponsored plans have been hit by cost increases of more than 70% since 2000. The government took a good first step with its initiative, and employers should support it and collaborate wherever possible. As National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler said of the effort, "A transparent health care system is essential to reducing spending and increasing quality."
In other words, to take the mystery of health care costs out of the black box, we all have to play nice in the sandbox. But there is nothing juvenile about it: Working together requires a mature sense of community in both the public and private sector. Along those lines, it was encouraging to spend time at last month's Benefits Management Forum & Expo in Chicago, where benefit professionals gathered to find out what everyone else is doing about common problems. The answers came as often from networking conversations as PowerPoint presentations. You had to be there to truly understand.
Certainly, there are many other opportunities for benefit professionals to build this sense of community, learn from the experiences of others and stand on one another's shoulders to reach their goals. Meetings are one, electronic media and their communication exchanges are another, as of course are your industry publications. We'd like to be as interactive as possible as we all try to learn what "everyone else" is doing. Next month's EBN will contain more coverage on the federal government's health transparency initiative, and on solutions from BMF&E.
There's a lot of important information coming out, and we're happy to share it with you. - D.A
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