Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Managing Chronic Costs of Health Care 

By John LaPlante

Categories:  New Hampshire

Calls for state leaders and policy analysts to consider a dynamic approach to health care. In tax policy, dynamic analysis considers the changes in human behavior brought about by incentives in tax policy.

Charles M. Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, says that health care in New Hampshire (and elsewhere) needs to get dynamic.

Health policy, he says, should "move beyond static analysis and cost-shifting plans to a system that can manage costs by managing disease and the chronic conditions that dominate health care spending."

The report looks at the disease management efforts of Medicare as well as some private plans in the state.

It concludes that regardless of where health care goes, an increased emphasis on health, not sickness, is called for:

"Nothing in changing our paradigm in favor of chronic care management demands we accept or reject other reforms, prefers the agenda of one political party over another, or demands that the effort be carried forth solely by the government or solely by the private sector.

On the contrary, there are dozens of initiatives that can dovetail nicely with a focus on chronic care management."

• posted by John LaPlante
• 5:09 pm
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