Thoughts while reviewing the news on overturning or reforming Obamacare…
The following points of view were expressed in a healthcare trade publication this week in answer to this question: “What is single healthcare problem you want fixed now?”
William P. Thompson, President and CEO of SSM Health (St. Louis) — “Reduce the administrative burden on the healthcare system. By some estimates, up to 30 percent of healthcare costs are spent to comply with regulatory and other requirements that are imposed upon the healthcare system. The sheer magnitude and complexity of the rules and regulations are mind-boggling and have reached a point where we find rules that contradict each other or that can actually impair our ability to provide high-quality care. Of course, I recognize that a reasonable level of administrative oversight is necessary to help prevent fraud and abuse of the system, but the sheer size of the governmental bureaucracy and the duplication of reviews and audits have led to significant waste. By reducing this waste, we could provide more resources to the actual delivery of care.”
Michael J. Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.) – “Reduce the conflicting and over-burdensome array of regulatory demands on healthcare organizations. We are inundated with a plethora of micro-regulations, and that, I think, just makes the business much more complicated than it needs to be. It consumes excess resources and doesn’t do enough to improve outcomes for patients. This is not to suggest that I’m against compliance, but the constant development of dozens of regulations on an ongoing basis makes the machinery of progress move much more slowly than it could.”
Is administrative agency imperialism coming to an end?
Regulations stifle innovation
Regulations can kill an industry.
THEHILL.COM
Photo: Trump issues executive order to start rolling back Obamacare.
Editor’s Note: From Solomon’s Proverbs to Pascal’s Pensées, the short, pithy observation has been a valuable form of commentary on culture and the human condition. This article is taken from Thomas Loarie’s Thoughts While…series.
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