peel.

Some topics that were addressed included the role of government versus the private sector, the economy’s effect on businesses which provide healthcare to employees, empowering consumers, and the increasingly important role that technology will have on managing medical records.

So what are the most important things that consumers look for when shopping for healthcare? Generally, affordability, portability and privacy come to mind. However, companies are more concerned with cost, speed and the ability to analyze large quantities of data to sort high risk from low risk individuals and outsource the risk to other insurance companies. In order to balance these sometimes conflicting interests, many agreed that the government should step in to ensure privacy, standardize procedures and contracts, facilitate the free flow of information and increase transparency between consumers and health care providers. Websites have also been a valuable tool in enabling consumers to choose their own plan, pick a doctor, nursing home and more. However, flaws in the system still remain.

One inherent problem with empowering consumers with too much information through the Internet include the increased likelihood that people will lie on their application to get a better monthly price for their insurance. Similarly, people who are generally healthy would be less willing to share their entire health information than those who are terminally ill and desperately need special treatment. Also, as one panelist pointed out, increased security in the form of restricting access to medical information is critical as DNA research progresses and family history can easily be revealed through the study of a person’s chemical make-up. Creepy!

On the provider-side, a free market system would not work because competition makes it unlikely for providers to share information with each other, which can make it difficult for a person to escape the tight grasp of their current provider for a new one. When a panelist confronted president and CEO of Group Health Cooperative, Scott Armstrong about the inability for him to switch providers with his own medical information, Mr. Armstrong sheepishly replied that “it is a fundamental problem we are looking in to.” It is doubtful, however, that Group Health is the only one who refuses to provide individuals with their own medical history should they opt to find a new health care provider.

And the idea of government-issued universal healthcare is just another form of socialism and/or communism. Ask any conservative.

The financial and economic downturn has also shook the healthcare industry as companies squeeze their employees out of quality health care or do not offer it at all. There has been a substantial drop in the number of companies purchasing insurance for employees and recent layoffs have caused many to roam the streets uninsured. Thus, the burden of costs has shifted to the uninsured due to the recession (though many economists have not officially acknowledged it yet).

To me, the most important factors in maintaining confidential electronic records is security and storage. I was therefore shocked when Mr. Armstrong, said that he could “care less about who stores the data… it is only a short term problem.” Also, when asked about network problems later in the evening, he replied that such problems will be worked out when they get there and although he couldn’t predict the future, he was “sure that these healthcare providers will do heroic work in the health care industry.” 

God knows we’ll need such heroic work to save the industry in the next few decades…