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Health System Reform Alert: Aug. 27, 2009

ALERT

PA Medical Society Releases Eight Essential
Principles of Health System Reform

Any reforms to the nation’s health system must be properly funded, increase efficiency, make coverage available and affordable, and provide care that’s based on expert consensus or evidence.

That is some of the guidance to be drawn from “The Eight Essential Principles of Health System Reform,” which were approved recently by the executive committee of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s Board of Trustees.

The guiding principles are:

1. Print a copy of the Eight Essential Principles.

   Health care coverage should be available and affordable to all American citizens and legal residents.
2. Patient care should be based on either demonstrated evidence of, or expert consensus on safety, efficacy and effectiveness.
3. Health care business transactions and administrative processes should be transparent and use available technology to facilitate information sharing, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.
4. Health care expenditures should be adequate to improve population-based outcomes, sustain research and innovation, and support workforce training needs.
5. Health care delivery markets should be constructed to be competitive, thus increasing efficiency, innovation and quality as well as reinforcing a physician’s ability to compete.
6. Comprehensive medical liability reform is essential.
7. The health care system must ensure the choice of provider and health plan or care system.
8. The health care system must promote the patient/physician relationship.

Tell Us What You Think

Join the discussion about health system reform. The Pennsylvania Medical Society gives you three options:

AMA Writes Letter to American Physicians Explaining Its Position

The American Medical Association is seeking to help physicians in Pennsylvania and across the US understand the AMA’s health system reform strategy, including its controversial support of House of Representatives legislation (HR 3200).

“The AMA is reaching out to its members and members of supporting organizations with facts and resource materials about health system reform,” writes J. James Rohack, MD, president of the AMA.

The entire letter, which is posted on the Pennsylvania Medical Society website, covers:

• The status of HR 3200
• The reasons for AMA support of the legislation
• AMA reactions to recent comments by Pres. Obama

The AMA has also launched a website dedicated to health system reform.

Some state societies, including the Louisiana State Medical Association and the Medical Association of Georgia, have come out strongly in opposition to the AMA’s actions. Read about their positions at the following two websites:

• Louisiana State Medical Association
• Medical Association of Georgia

Handling Health Reform Inquiries: Greet the Heat with Facts

Regardless of a physician’s position on health system reform, the Pennsylvania Medical Society is urging its members to be a source of facts and a calming influence for patients who are worried.

Some resources physicians can use:

• Politifact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times
• FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Kaiser Family Foundation website includes a side-by-side comparison of House and Senate legislation and other analysis