PatientAssistance.com Proposes a HOLI Solution to American Healthcare Reform
Posted Jun 30th, 2009 by Patient Assistance Team
Patient Assistance (http://www.PatientAssistance.com), a nonprofit organization connecting uninsured and underinsured Americans to patient assistance programs, proposes an insured approach to real healthcare reform.
BATON ROUGE, La., June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PatientAssistance.com -- a nonprofit helping patients in need find patient assistance programs to make prescription medications more affordable --understands the concerns of the uninsured and underinsured in the current healthcare system and proposes a new approach to healthcare reform. The organization suggests Health plan Owned Life Insurance (HOLI) on top of improving healthcare efficiency standards to address the nation's growing healthcare costs. The plan would give health plan providers an incentive to lower up-front costs to patients with cost recovery Life Insurance proceeds and decreasing the risk for employers, government and insurance companies.
"Every citizen requires a lifetime of healthcare," says Rex Bowden, President of PatienceAssistance.com, Inc. "Therefore healthcare costs accumulate over the years for every single person--costs that are not recovered and we don't directly pay for. Efficiency is a good place to start. By cutting waste, we can slow costs. But those cost-cutting measures won't entirely stop or slow the rising costs of healthcare. The bigger problem is that healthcare reform options being presented don't incorporate truly new sources of revenue streams. Making healthcare affordable for everyone is only one side of the equation. To make reform sustainable, we must factor in new revenue sources to make these solutions viable in the long run."
Patient Assistance supports plans to make the U.S. healthcare system more efficient--cutting waste such as eliminating duplication, moving to electronic records, and eliminating cost shifting. However, those improvements won't fundamentally change the costs of healthcare. As those costs continue to rise, even more slowly, taxes will have to be increased to account for those higher costs. That's where new sources of added cost recovery revenue must fill a void, and Patient Assistance proposes a simple and low-cost insured solution.
"HOLI plans could be designed to meet this need," says Bowden. "The life insurance plans would provide every person death benefit proceeds which would be used to reimburse health plans for the lifetime healthcare costs they've accumulated. This would remove most of the financial risk for healthcare plan providers, while enabling them to keep premiums and co-pays affordable for all insured's and the un-insured."
An insured solution to healthcare reform would tackle the issue from both ends--bringing an influx of new income to health plans and medical providers to support innovation while cutting out-of-pocket expenses directly facing consumers. It would also increase the participation and profits of insurance companies who provide the HOLI cost recovery insurance.
About PatientAssistance.com
PatientAssistance.com is a nonprofit organization providing information on thousands of patient assistance programs to help users better manage, and reduce, prescription drug costs. Users can search by medication or for specific patient assistance programs, which are updated on a regular basis. The site offers patients a variety of tools including local drug pricing information, the ability to track programs the user is currently enrolled in, and reminders when patients need to resubmit enrollment forms to the pharmaceutical manufacturers. PatientAssistance.com helps consumers find patient assistance programs, supply enrollment forms, and track their re-enrollments all in one place.
For more information about PatientAssistance.com, please visit http://www.PatientAssistance.com, or contact Rex Bowden at 225-229-3085 or .
BATON ROUGE, La., June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PatientAssistance.com -- a nonprofit helping patients in need find patient assistance programs to make prescription medications more affordable --understands the concerns of the uninsured and underinsured in the current healthcare system and proposes a new approach to healthcare reform. The organization suggests Health plan Owned Life Insurance (HOLI) on top of improving healthcare efficiency standards to address the nation's growing healthcare costs. The plan would give health plan providers an incentive to lower up-front costs to patients with cost recovery Life Insurance proceeds and decreasing the risk for employers, government and insurance companies.
"Every citizen requires a lifetime of healthcare," says Rex Bowden, President of PatienceAssistance.com, Inc. "Therefore healthcare costs accumulate over the years for every single person--costs that are not recovered and we don't directly pay for. Efficiency is a good place to start. By cutting waste, we can slow costs. But those cost-cutting measures won't entirely stop or slow the rising costs of healthcare. The bigger problem is that healthcare reform options being presented don't incorporate truly new sources of revenue streams. Making healthcare affordable for everyone is only one side of the equation. To make reform sustainable, we must factor in new revenue sources to make these solutions viable in the long run."
Patient Assistance supports plans to make the U.S. healthcare system more efficient--cutting waste such as eliminating duplication, moving to electronic records, and eliminating cost shifting. However, those improvements won't fundamentally change the costs of healthcare. As those costs continue to rise, even more slowly, taxes will have to be increased to account for those higher costs. That's where new sources of added cost recovery revenue must fill a void, and Patient Assistance proposes a simple and low-cost insured solution.
"HOLI plans could be designed to meet this need," says Bowden. "The life insurance plans would provide every person death benefit proceeds which would be used to reimburse health plans for the lifetime healthcare costs they've accumulated. This would remove most of the financial risk for healthcare plan providers, while enabling them to keep premiums and co-pays affordable for all insured's and the un-insured."
An insured solution to healthcare reform would tackle the issue from both ends--bringing an influx of new income to health plans and medical providers to support innovation while cutting out-of-pocket expenses directly facing consumers. It would also increase the participation and profits of insurance companies who provide the HOLI cost recovery insurance.
About PatientAssistance.com
PatientAssistance.com is a nonprofit organization providing information on thousands of patient assistance programs to help users better manage, and reduce, prescription drug costs. Users can search by medication or for specific patient assistance programs, which are updated on a regular basis. The site offers patients a variety of tools including local drug pricing information, the ability to track programs the user is currently enrolled in, and reminders when patients need to resubmit enrollment forms to the pharmaceutical manufacturers. PatientAssistance.com helps consumers find patient assistance programs, supply enrollment forms, and track their re-enrollments all in one place.
For more information about PatientAssistance.com, please visit http://www.PatientAssistance.com, or contact Rex Bowden at 225-229-3085 or .
