Public and private partnerships needed for health care reform, says speaker.

Byline: John Harrington

Oct. 30--Health care reform in the U.S. will have to take the form of a public/private partnership, with elements from each sector combining to satisfactorily provide for the coverage of all Americans, the president of an insurance industry trade association said Monday.

At the Montana Healthcare Forum sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana along with Carroll College, America's Health Insurance Plans CEO Karen Ignagni said her member groups are easy targets for politicians but aren't the root of the growing dissatisfaction with the country's health care system.

"I think we're going to have a mixed system (public and private), and we have to figure out how to get the best of both," she said. "Clearly our country has got to get over simply talking about premiums and health plans. We have to look at the underlying costs and figure out what's needed going forward."

Ignagni said that of every health insurance dollar spent in the U.S., only 14 cents go to pay for claims processing and administration, consumer services and profits, with 86 cents paying doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and other medical services.

"The fact of the matter is, our premiums track costs," she said. "The cost of paying claims has declined in the past 10 years."

Another reason costs are climbing is that Americans are less healthy than Europeans, she said, with higher incidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes and obesity.