Healthcare Reform White Paper

We are a for-profit organization but we provide care to a higher percentage of governmental and uninsured patients than most of the charitable healthcare organizations in southwest Missouri—patients typically served by nonprofit or tax-supported providers. We have searched for other similarly organized systems still functioning today and we have found none. For-profit physician-owned hospitals operating as safety-net providers for governmental and uninsured patients simply do not exist. Our organization is unique in many ways but its uniqueness provides the opportunity to test (and possibly rebut) some of the assumptions often made about this country’s healthcare system and the path reform should take. In that sense, Ozarks Community Hospital could be considered a demonstration project for healthcare reform. We are providing this “white paper” presenting our perspective on healthcare reform to contribute to the national debate.

This OCH White Paper on Healthcare Reform is presented in three main parts—our rationale for reform now, our unique perspective on healthcare and our reform recommendations. If the reader has no particular interest in our rationale for reform or our story but is primarily interested in the reform proposal itself, the final section can stand on its own. With the anticipation of reaching a general audience, certain healthcare industry concepts are explained in a manner that will no doubt irritate readers inside the industry. We placed some inside a text box to make them easier to skip!

Vision for Health Care: OCH White Paper Recommends Reform Plan

Springfield, MO – Every United States citizen can have basic benefit coverage without increased governmental control and with lower per capita costs, according to the 2009 Healthcare Reform white paper released today by Ozarks Community Hospital (OCH).

“The healthcare system will suffer more harm from half-way measures and shortcuts attempting reform than from doing nothing. The moment for a complete overhaul of the system is now,” writes author and OCH CEO Paul Taylor. “There is an ‘inconvenient truth’ about universal healthcare coverage in this country: we already have it; it just does not work very well. If a patient has an emergency medical condition and seeks treatment in a hospital, the patient will be treated regardless of ability to pay—everyone is covered by this policy benefit.” We should stop debating whether to create a universal healthcare system and focus instead on how to pay for it fairly and efficiently. If everyone paid their share of the cost of providing healthcare to all, the cost to each of us would drop significantly. We need a healthcare system based not on an individual entitlement to care but on the mutual obligation of all parties.

Recommended reforms include universal basic benefits, an emphasis on primary care, increased bundling of hospital services and specialty care, a single payer platform with claims processing by private intermediaries, a four-year transition period, governance by a national board, comprehensive malpractice reform and any willing provider rules. The reformed healthcare system would be financed through: traditional Medicare and Medicaid programs; mandatory premiums paid by employers, employees and the self-employed; unemployment benefits; and a tax assessed on those who fail to pay. There would be a universal 30% co-pay paid directly or covered through secondary insurances. The reformed healthcare system would eliminate the nonprofit tax exemption granted providers who do not provide all services free of charge, as well as the tax deduction for employer plans. There would be a separate premium to finance a long-term care benefit for the elderly and disabled.

Paul Taylor is the CEO and general counsel for Ozarks Community Hospital. Ozarks Community Hospital is a small health system headquartered in Springfield, MO. Copies of the paper can be downloaded at http://www.ochonline.com/. Discussion to follow on Paul Taylor’s blog: http://ochhealthcarereform.blogspot.com/