CALPIRG Blog

The X Prize for personal space flight put up a substantial kitty to encourage inventors to tackle the final frontier.  This week, it was reported that the foundation behind the prize is taking on health care.

The model they're using is basically the same: the foundation is calling for proposals on how to design a health care system that will keep patients well.  They'll put a few finalists into practice in controlled experiments covering 10,000 people, and award $10 million to the one that performs the best.

The fact the nation's biggest insurer, Wellpoint, Inc., is helping to put up the cash might give one a bit of pause, of course.  But they're probably just after some positive publicity, and for a health insurer, opportunities like that don't come cheap. 

At any rate, so long as there's $10 million up for grabs, I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring.  In order to improve the health of those 10,000 people, here's what I'd do:

I'd have them work full-time convincing Congress to pass Obama's health care reform plan.

There is no shortage of ideas for fixing health care.  Our reports  contain plenty of recommendations,from the narrowest policy tweak to the largest-scale changing of the system.  Offhand, I can think of dozens of books laying out alternate ways of running things. And that's without taking notice of the fact that most ofthe rest of the developed world has health care systems that are much better and cheaper than are own, while still being very different from each other. 

We're practically swimming in options.  If you put any reasonably smart health wonk in charge of remaking the health care system, there's no question that they'd be able to come up with half a dozen different approaches that would reduce costs, improve quality, and make coverage more dependable.

The problem with health care isn't a policy problem, in other words.  It's political.  Getting those improved systems through Congress is a tall, tall order, what with all the special-interest opposition ready to go to bat for the status quo.  And while it may be the case that, say, tweaking Medicare reimbursement schedules can lower the rising cost of health care by a percentage point or two, changes like that, by themselves, aren't going to get one or two more Senators to vote for change.

Without fundamental reforms, there's no way to fix the system.  Insurers and drug companies will keep marching after higher profits until they drag us all off a cliff.  No matter how clever your idea for keeping 10,000 people healthy, it's not going to work if they can't afford to go to the doctor!

And that's why the smartest, most immediate way to fix health care is to have those 10,000 work full-time to pass Obama's reform proposal.  The main thing standing in the way of them getting quality, affordable health care is reform-phobic lawmakers.  So let's take aim at the real problem.  Heck, the 10,000 might even get some exercise as they're walking the halls of Congress.

So, where's my $10 million?