Cost & Access are like Chocolate & Peanut Butter

OK -- back to the Families USA event. I hate how the GOP sort of owns the health care "cost" issue and the Dems own "access." Access and Cost are like Chocolate and Peanut Butter -- two great tastes that taste better together. So I was pleased to hear this addressed so strongly...

• Ed Rendell talked about the importance of quality and how it feeds into cost. The average hospital stay in Pennsylvania costs about $31K. If the person gets a hospital-acquired infection, that cost goes up to $151K. Scandinavia has almost eliminated hospital infections though a simple protocol -- testing and tagging everyone that comes through the door. For a patient with something like MRSA (many of us have it and don't know it) they are housed in a different room and everyone that comes in contact with them -- from nurse to housekeeping -- wears gloves and hats, etc. The cost for the protocol is $377 per patient -- compared to the extra $120
• Rendell said "We have to bears about cost control." He pointed out that in Pa, inflation over the past 8 years went up 17%, wages went up 14%, and health care costs went up 73%
  
  
  73%. Think about that.
  
  
• Tom Daschle has a new book out on health reform: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-What-About-Health-Care-Crisis/dp/0312383010
• He gave a very powerful pep talk on why and how we need to be on the offensive instead of the defensive. We need to force vested stakeholders who fight reform to defend the status quo instead of us trying to defend change. To that end we all need to be focused on telling every doubter out there that we ARE NOT THE BEST health care system in the world. We're just not. We rank 37th in the world in life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. Behind Costa Rica and ahead of Slovenia.
• Every other day in America enough people to fill up a 747 die from lack of health care access. Imagine every other day, an entire plane of people crash and die. That's how many people we're losing to our inefficient health care system.
• Gov. Patrick of Massachusetts in his presentation pointed out that there is no "perfect" solution and the longer we wait, the longer we have no solution at all. Hillary Clinton echoed this sentiment: "We've let perfect be the enemy for too long." You must have everyone at the table to improve access and cost but not everyone is going to get everything they want. This is what Hillary missed in '92. It's good to see she understands this now.
• Patrick talked about what we at Duke talk about all the time -- as you expand access, you must also expand primary care. We have to be creative both in inspiring folks to go into primary care and in finding ways to fund it.
  
• My aunt, who works on health care issues at the state level, says there is no silver bullet to reform, only silver buckshot! The most innovative solutions and ideas are going to continue to come from state legislatures and governor's mansions.