This Coalition of 20 Companies Thinks It Can Change U.S. Health Care

RP Members this does affect some of us, but not all of us. What do you thank about these strategies?

For too long, employers have outsourced management of their employees’ health care benefits to those with little incentive to improve value. In a departure from this norm, 20 major corporations earlier this month announced that they were joining forces to create the Health Transformation Alliance (HTA) to help them take a much more active role in the health and health care of their employees and beneficiaries — some 4 million people. The HTA’s self-described goal is “to improve the way corporations provide health care benefits in an effort to create better health care outcomes for their employees” by aggregating its members’ purchasing power and using it to gain additional leverage with care providers.

Given what we have learned from studying, advising, and participating in ongoing and past efforts by employers to improve health care, using collective power as leverage often is not sufficient to drive meaningful change. The HTA would significantly improve the likelihood of achieving the “Triple Aim” — better care for individuals, better health for populations, and lower per capita cost — by employing these five strategies: