What’s stopping WellPoint, with its huge platform, from making those changes itself?
Part of making it happen is also making sure we’re all willing to accept some degree of responsibility in driving those costs down. We can go to providers and show them quality data. We don’t like to talk about this, but there are top-tier doctors, and there are bottom-tier doctors. What we are doing is starting to provide physicians and hospitals that data. We are moving to more care based on quality rather than quantity. We’re moving to say we’re not going to pay for services where you have re-admittance within 30 days because you had a post-infection rate and you didn’t provide quality service on the front end. Q: What change are we most likely to see from health-care reform debate in Washington? A: Today we have some concerns with some of the things we’re seeing because I think they will drive costs up. Very little has been said on how to drive those costs down. When I look at essentially taxes on pharma, taxes on medical-durable equipment and taxes on managed-care organizations, t
