The CEO of the parent of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut says a health care reform push that aims at the insurance industry misses a much bigger target in its quest to lower rising costs.
Three cents of every health insurance premium dollar collected go toward insurer profits, while 87 cents go toward medical care, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly said in a speech Tuesday to the Economic Club of Indiana, where WellPoint is based.
“If you completely eliminated insurance industry profits, which is clearly the aim for some, you will pay for two days of health care in America,” she said, adding later that health care problems won’t be solved “by focusing only on the insurance side of the equation.”
Congress is in the middle of debates over ways to overhaul health care in the United States to trim costs and cover the nation’s uninsured population of an estimated 46 million people.
WellPoint, which operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 14 states, is the largest private insurer based on membership.
Braly emphasized quality of care over quantity as a key to taming costs during her 26-minute speech. She noted that Medicare spending totaled $468 billion last year, and the program is projected to be bankrupt in eight years.
“Traditional Medicare pays for quantity rather than quality, and all of the pilot programs that were intended to help government change that … have failed,” she said.
She cited a study published several years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine that said patients receive recommended care, or evidence-based medicine, only about half the time. Braly also said about $750 billion is spent every year on health care “that doesn’t improve the health of a single person.”
This inefficiency, she said, drives up costs and forms the “crux of the problem.” (AP)
