CEOs: Change Doc Fees

The CEOs of the country's biggest companies have their own health care plan that calls for insurance market reforms, broad coverage of the uninsured, and a change in the way the government pays doctors and hospitals.

While Congress is wrestling with the first two goals, there is little discussion of the third. Medicare, the U.S. health insurance plan for seniors, pays health care providers a low rate of reimbursement for services, and that encourages doctors to order additional tests and perform more procedures to make up for lost revenue, critics say.

Leaders of the Business Roundtable, which released a report on health reform this week, say the way docs are paid by Medicare needs to be overhauled so there are incentives and measures for improving patients' health.

"We need to change the way Medicare pays providers to reward quality and value in the delivery of care," Antonio M. Perez, CEO of Eastman Kodak Co., told reporters on a conference call. "Today’s system is very inefficient, relying on a fee for service and that doesn’t work."

The cost of health insurance for each worker has more than doubled for big employers since 2001, averaging $10,743 this year, according to the Business Roundtable. That number will jump 116 percent to $28,530 in the next decade if reform doesn't take place, the group warns.

The goal: slow health care costs to the pace of the broader economy, or about 4 percent growth. Right now health care costs are growing at 10 percent.

Covering more people will improve overall health and spread costs over a larger pool, Perez says. Insurance reforms need to guarantee coverage and eliminate preexisting conditions as a barrier to getting health coverage, he adds.

While the CEOs say a Senate committee version of President Obama's health reform is a good start, their trade group isn't enamored with any proposal in Congress so far.

"There are elements in all of them that we can work from, but like everyone else we’re waiting for the Senate version of the bill," Ivan G. Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications Inc., said on the conference call. The Senate Finance Committee bill, sponsored by Montana Senator Max Baucus, "we believe would have the most promise as a starting point to working through the issues and continuing the journey in this process."