Business on Board:A White House Forum

A number of business leaders recently participated in a White House forum on health care reform.The forum was moderated by Nancy-Ann DeParle,Director of the White House Office of Health Reform and a former Clinton administration official.Richard Braken of the Hospital Corporation of America noted that his firm provides about 5.5 million emergency room visits each year.One in five of these patients cannot pay.It's escalated dramatically in the past year.Expanding coverage has to be the centerpiece of reform.It isn't just good medicine;it's good economics.Sixty or seventy percent of HCA's cost is either labor or supplies.We have to take on variation in our administrative and clinical processes,Mr.Braken said.We have to get physicians into the redesign.We believe that minimizing variation holds great promise,but it will be difficult.If there were easy answers,they'd be in place right now.The proposed reforms seem good now,but it's the test of the marketplace that will drive reform,Mr.Braken observed.