Purchaser power in the health care market
More than half of Americans get their health insurance through their employer. As a group, employers have enormous power to shape the health care market. But, employers rarely realize this. That’s why it’s important and encouraging to see leading employers in our state, such as Boeing and Starbucks (both Alliance members), step up and demand higher quality health care for their employees.
Since 2004, the Alliance has provided a platform where employers can with a collective voice speak to health care providers and health plans. We have helped, through our performance measurement and reporting, provide the data employers need to make smarter health care purchasing decisions. But as a community, we can do more. Our health care system is market-based. Competition should breed better quality. But if the major consumers of health care aren’t looking carefully at quality, then everyone loses.
Scott Armstrong, CEO of Group Health Cooperative (another Alliance member), and Patricia Smith, CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans, made this very point in a guest opinion for The Seattle Times. Using free resources like Washington Health Alliance’s eValue8, an evaluation of health plans in our state, and the Community Checkup, which publicly reports quality measures for local hospitals, medical groups and clinics, more than ever before, health care purchasers have the tools they need to make health plans and providers compete on quality, not just cost or choice.
More information
- Alliance reports on Washington state health care quality and cost.
- Spotlight on Improvement series highlights real stories of health care quality improvement.