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June 30, 2004
Sims proposes health care improvement "next steps"
King County Executive Ron Sims today sent the Health Advisory Task Force recommendations to the King County Council, urging members to join him as he works to activate key recommendations aimed at improving health, health care and health care costs. This is not, Sims said, a report that will sit on a shelf.
“Rising health care costs and the universal desire for workable solutions prompted me to convene a health care task force,” said Sims. “Their work over the last six months resulted in an innovative and achievable set of strategies to improve the quality of health care while moderating costs. It is imperative that King County, as a major employer and as a government who feels the impact of the costs of care do all we can for our employees and for those we serve to implement those strategies for the region.”
National health care costs are expected to increase at 15 percent or more per year for at least the next five years. Health care spending accounts for over 15 percent of the nation’s economy, and projections put health care spending at 17.7 percent of gross domestic product by 2012. King County and other self insurers in the region are facing similar impacts - the amount spent on health care could double in five years unless changes are made. While some minor changes have meant some savings to King County, they have not been sufficient to reduce escalating costs.
“We all know the county is facing a financial crisis. If these costs keep increasing we may have to look at reducing jobs, cutting services, shifting costs to employees or reducing their benefits. I refuse to accept these are the only options,” said Sims. “That is why I created a health advisory task force to review rising employee health care costs."
The 20-member panel included representatives from self insured employers (Starbucks, Costco, Microsoft, Washington Mutual, King County, the State of Washington and City of Seattle), health care experts, including physicians, a nurse practitioner, a pharmacist and legal, labor and economic experts.
The task force agreed that the county has assessed the health care problem accurately and had achieved a degree of cost containment in its own plans. However, they agreed that the county alone cannot do much more unless the entire region works together to improve the quality, access and value of health care in the Puget Sound area.
The group recommended to Executive Sims in mid-June that to get real savings and better health care, changes must be coordinated across the region in a system where medical professionals, employers, employees and the health care plans worked together in a regional partnership.
“The partnership the task force recommends would provide the leadership necessary to create and implement an integrated set of system wide improvements. What this means is that together, we can make quality improvements in a health care system that means better care, healthier people and affordable costs,” said Sims. “I endorse the task force work and its recommendation of creating a partnership to move forward.”
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