Adventures in Entrepreneurship with Jeremy Hanks

MWCN Executive Roundtable – Governor Huntsman’s Healthcare Initiative

I attended an Executive Roundtable yesterday afternoon at the State Capital Building. The Mountain West Capital Network (MWCN) organized this event for MWCN members and Utah 100 Winners with ties to healthcare, consulting, biotech, biomed, and a few high-tech representatives.

Dr. Norman Thurston (an advisor on Healthcare to the Governor and the Legislature) led a dynamic discussion on the Governor’s healthcare initiative. Back in September, in one of my Inc 500 Conference summary posts, I stated: “The health care system in America (and our culture that is driving massive increases in cost) is screwed six ways from Sunday.”

After yesterday’s discussion, I stand by that claim 110%. Some interested tidbits from the presentation by Dr. Thurston:

• Since 2000, health insurance rates have doubled
• In 2006, rates increases at twice the rate of earnings and double the rate of inflation
• In 1960, consumers paid for 69% of health expenditures
• In 2005, consumers paid for 26% of expenditures (it’s shifted to insurance companies)

Basically, those 4 points are INSANE. We have a sense of entitlement in this country in that we think someone else is responsible for my health care costs, and ultimately, that makes all of us very irresponsible of our own health. There is no transparency or visibility for consumers. There are no incentive programs in the system to reward consumers for better personal health management. Healthcare professionals are not incentivized and compensated for quality. They actual make more money by giving you more quantity of healthcare.

In the question that I asked during the discussion yesterday, I said that I thought the Healthcare system in America is the most complex man-made system in the universe.

It sounds like some folks here in UT are going to try and get some laws passed to try to change these trends. And they’re not going to wait for the Federal Government to try to make changes. I’ve uploaded the PPT slides they used to present the case for and the plan to address Utah Health System Reform in Utah. They’re hoping to pass all these reforms in 2008. I think this will be hard, but I am glad someone is doing something. The way it’s going now, everyone form entrepreneurs and small businesses to consumers of healthcare to large corporations are heading quickly down a very disastrous road.

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