HOW YOU CAN HELP

Democrats, Independents and Republicans can all agree on this much: There is more than enough money in America’s health care system today to allow coverage for everyone at a high level of care. In Wisconsin alone, $32 billion was spent in 2006 on health care. Yet premiums continue to rise.

While the system is complex, some of the answers are simple. By encouraging and introducing free-market mechanisms, promoting wellness and fitness, and encouraging efficiency and transparency in our system, we can find solutions that address today’s needs with bipartisan support. 

Below are recommendations made by  a task force led by John Torinus, Chairman of Serigraph Corporation, West Bend.

1. Encourage a shift in both private and public sectors to consumer-empowered health plans, incorporating personal health accounts, responsible deductibles and co-insurance
2. Incentivize prevention, wellness and fitness programs.  Read more.
3. Create structures that allows the marketplace for health care to form and operate effectively, including:
   • required transparency on prices and quality
   • deductibility of premiums
   • tax exemptions for money put into health accounts, and
   • incentives for choosing high value providers
4. Federal waivers to experiment with consumer-empowered responsibility in Medicaid, incorporating deductibles, co-insurance and health savings accounts. 
5. Savings to Wisconsin of between $200 million to $800 million are possible (10% to 40% of $2 billion).
6. Encourage hospitals, clinics and doctors to accelerate initiatives on lean and quality disciplines – a proven way to wring cost and error out of organizations.
7. Launch quality audits of health providers and make them public. Immunity to protect outside, independent auditors will be necessary.