Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to

wait for the train of the future to run over him.  

~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Healthcare ...pick up a magazine, read the paper, listen to the news, surf the Web and you are as likely to read about healthcare as you are about Jon and Kate's latest marital woes. One of the major issues in the recent presidential election and a campaign promise President Obama is being held to, healthcare reform is on the front burner! So why?

Segue to this column and ask "why write it" and "who is PJ?" With 30+ years in healthcare, I have seen quite a bit in my tenure. As a registered nurse I have taught some of you Lamaze classes and maybe helped with your delivery or as an office nurse in a solo private OB/GYN practice, maybe I weighed you in or called in your refill. Fast forward and I ventured from the bedside to the "desk side" and have had the opportunity to wear the hat of a Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer in an acute care hospital setting. I have worked in academic, community, religious and for profit hospital settings during which I have seen repeated staffing crunches, rightsizing, downsizing, the advent of managed care, a press for quality in Pay for Performance and a focus on customer service and patients being customers versus patients (I hear you doctors out there grinding your teeth). As a resident of this wonderful community, I care about what may happen and how it will affect each and all of us. So after being asked several times if someone could "pick my brain" about a healthcare issue, the idea for this column was born. PJ's Healthcare 101 will explore some of the current trends and topics affecting healthcare providers and consumers alike and localize the data where possible. I won't offer answers or solutions but rather I hope to be your personal researcher that delves into the buzz and filters some of it back to you as it affects you and this community. Questions and suggestions about what confuses, concerns or connects to you are welcome as potential future column topics.

So back to healthcare as an industry and a priority for this country. A system so complex and cumbersome, even its own experts struggle to explain the current model and certainly there isn't a unified platform for what "reform" looks like. Here are some of the data that paint the backdrop for why some kind of healthcare reform is inevitable:

The United States spends in excess of $2 trillion dollars per year or 17 percent of the national economy in healthcare. This averages out to be $6714/person as compared to $3768/person (Canada), $3371/person (Germany), $2670/person (Britain) and $2578/person (Japan). For that amount of spending, we still have higher infant mortality and lower longevity than other industrialized nations. The spend rate for health care is higher (5.1 percent) than inflation (2.1 percent).

Though often debated, the generally touted number of uninsured Americans is in the neighborhood of 46 million. The US Chamber breaks that number down in a recent Web site posting as 9.7 million are undocumented or illegal aliens, 11 million are eligible but not enrolled in programs, 9 million who make over $75,000 per year but elect not to have insurance and 8.1 million who truly are low-income but don't qualify for the current government sponsored programs. This number is not expected to improve as the Center for American Progress Action Fund and President Obama estimate 14,000 Americans are losing their insurance every day due to job cuts! Bringing it closer to home, the SC Biz recently published the uninsured percentages by county; Charleston (21.3 percent), Berkeley (16.9 percent) and Dorchester (18.3 percent).

In the next PJ's Healthcare 101, we'll look at the main points from the various plans offered up by the key players. In the meantime, for those of you who liked to read even the "suggested reading" list in class, here is a recent article from Time Magazine and some web sites you can explore:

BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Pickert, K. (August 10, 2009). What Health Care Reform Really Means. A User's Guide. Time , 32-33.

http://www.white house.gov/realitycheck/

http://www.voteforbusiness.com.

To Your Health,

PJ

PJJ Management Consultants, LLC

PJJMgmtConsLLC@aol.com

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