GROUP PRAISED FOR HEALTH CARE APPROACH; HEAD OF COALITION SAYS HE TELLS OTHERS O EFFORT IN CAPE

Physicians, health care providers and business leaders of Southeast Missouri were briefed Wednesday on health-care-coalition movements across the country by the president of the National Business Coalition Forum on Health.

Sean Sullivan, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based coalition, told the Southeast Missouri Business Group on Health that health care reform must start on the local level if it is to be successful.

"Your approach (to health care) is as well conceived and well designed as that of other groups from better-known, bigger places," Sullivan told the group. "I tell other places about what you are doing in Cape Girardeau and the success you are experiencing."

Sullivan's coalition forum is a national organization of employer-led coalitions promoting community-based reform of the health care system.

He said that about half of his time is spent travelling the country, meeting with members of his coalition and other, independent coalitions to discuss health care reform. The remainder of his time is spent in the nation's capitol politicking and lobbying with members of Congress.

"Groups like this can influence the course of public policy in the future," Sullivan said. "There is a feeling growing in the business community that the whole system can be changed at this level."

"Health care is quintessentially a local issue," he said. "It is something that the federal government cannot effectively control nor adequately regulate on an open-market principle."

The focus of the national coalition forum is to help coalitions get the best value for their medical-cost dollar. Sullivan said that the group does not aim to socialize health care benefits, but instead to work for solutions on the local level.

"Communitarianism is the term we prefer," Sullivan said. "While we believe in the forces of the market place, we need to use it to bring health care reform about on the community level."

Sullivan gave the business leaders several examples of systems in other states - some successful, some still struggling. He emphasized that each community must have its own system and that just because a certain plan works for one coalition does not make it better or worse than any other.

But, Sullivan said, everyone can learn from one another in the health-care-providing business.

"Our joint goal is to improve health care quality while saving the businesses and the employees money," Sullivan said. "Many federal programs include quality as an afterthought; quality is our starting point."

Overall, coalitions across the country are currently doing what the federal government has been fussing over for years, Sullivan said.

"It is dangerous not to move ahead to the extent that we can create realities which cannot be ignored by the political process," he said. "Congress will be moved by the state and community movements toward health care reform, I guarantee it."

The Southeast Missouri Business Group on Health met for the first time in May 1990 to discuss the issue of providing health care for the employees of each business and to share ideas. The group was incorporated in March 1991.

In early 1992, the group began meeting regularly with the Medical Society of Cape Girardeau to share thoughts and ideas.

The Business Group was formed with four objectives in mind: to impact legislation, to educate business leaders in the whole subject of health care, to work action plans with providers, and to collect data to help make decisions on where to put the group's efforts.

In September 1992, the Business Group allowed the medical community to become affiliate members of the group. Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Missouri was the insurance company chosen by the group to provide a health care package to all member businesses.

Since the start of the group less than three years ago, the membership has grown from 28 companies to 73 - 21 of which are affiliate members from the medical community. The group covers 10,000 lives through the insurance plan.