By Jerri Stroud
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
09/29/2004
The health care industry needs to get its house in order before the government imposes a system that no one will like, the president and chief executive of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Scott Serota, said Wednesday at a meeting of health care professionals at Washington University’s School of Medicine.
“We have a window of opportunity,” Serota said. “We have to step through it” or else face a system where consumers have to line up and wait for care as they do under single-payer systems in Canada and Britain.
The association he heads is an umbrella group for health care insurers who
use the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand.
Business groups stand ready to help the health care industry control costs…, said Tom Irwin, senior vice president of public policy for the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.
“We don’t have any solutions,” Irwin said. “But we can help you.”
Comment:
When the president and chief executive of the national Blue Cross
and Blue Shield Association believes that it is necessary to attack the
single payer model of reform, it is clear that the rationale of single payer
poses a very real threat to their industry. He realizes that private plans
have failed to adequately address the failures that a single payer system
would rectify. It is also interesting that a representative of the business
community offers help, but no solutions.
We have a solution: single payer. And Scott Serota confirms that our message
is being delivered. You can be proud that your efforts to educate the public
have been effective. Keep up the good work; more of the nation still needs
to hear from us.
Don