Harvard Rx for Health Insurance Costs — at a Price

I’m not gaining anything by pitching this book — and at a hefty $495 it’s clearly “value-priced” based on the notion that it promises business hundreds of times that sum in the cost of providing health insurance to employees.

But the fact it’s a Harvard Business School approach to the problem of soaring health insurance costs just may make it worthwhile. And at the end of this post, I’ve also got a link to a shorter version for much less.

Here’s the pitch I got by e-mail:

Fixing Competition in U.S. Health Care, a Harvard Business Review Research Report explains in language any business executive can understand what’s gone wrong over the past 20 years in U.S. health care—and what’s required to fix it.

Porter and Teisberg’s report includes:

A comprehensive review of the business structure of the U.S. health care system.

An in-depth explanation of how and why the health care industry has inadvertently resisted the kind of cost and quality improvements that are routinely achieved in well-functioning competitive industries.

Comprehensive data showing both the magnitude and causes of spiraling costs and disappointing quality in U.S. health care

Strategic recommendations for all key players in U.S. health care, including employers.

Specific examples of progress achieved where competition is actually working effectively in health care.

Porter and Teisberg present a detailed prescription for action that is validated by extensive research and specific examples of successes that their formula has already achieved.

A Preview of a Plan for Action

Health care can be evaluated just like any other business component that companies depend upon, but few corporate leaders have realized this. As a result, they’ve underestimated the impact that better management principles could have on this fast-growing portion of their companies’ cost structures.

In fact, say the authors, U.S. employers are in the best position to drive the necessary changes because they have the expertise to differentiate effective business solutions from the ineffective. In addition, employers have a great deal at stake in this issue, and it’s not just the billions of dollars in short-term costs that American business incurs each year from poor management of health care cost pressures. They are also risking the long-term productivity and loyalty of their employees.

American companies have the power to re-direct the providers and payers who serve them toward better models of competition that will control costs and enable steady improvements in quality over time. They also have the clout to influence government policy.

Fixing Competition in U.S. Health Care explains in detail what’s required to cure health care and how you can begin to take action today that will pay dividends for your employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders for years to come.

The price is $495. The value could be hundreds of thousands of dollars to your company.
This Harvard Business Review Research Report includes 86 pages of text accompanied by over 36 charts and graphs, and is available either as a downloadable PDF or as a printed document. Click here to see a free preview of the report.

Fixing Competition in U.S. Health Care delivers a groundbreaking solution to a crisis that threatens the profitability of American business, the essential bonds of loyalty between employers and employees, and the quality of the health care available to millions of American workers and their families.

Personally, it seems audacious to attempt to sell an 86-page book for almost 500 bucks, no matter how brilliant! And not truly in the interest of spreading good ideas to the grassroots business level where they can catch fire. Why not a $49 hardback available at Barnes & Noble, etc? One can only hope that the big corp. leaders struggling with millions of dollars of health care costs will buy copies and spread the best of the ideas.

This book apparently is an amplification of a shorter piece Porter and Teisberg did in Harvard Business Review in June 2004, “Redefining Competition in Health Care,” available for a mere $6.00.

There is a very detailed and thoughtful discussion of the “Redefining Competition in Health Care” article in the Health Care Blog, which looks to be an outstanding source of clear thinking on this issue and thus has been added to our bloated blogroll under a new category: “Blogs, Healthcare.”

Related (sort of) story highlighting one reason doctors may prescribe too many newer, more expensive scrips: “Reps say: Give me a D-R-U-G! According to a newspaper, drug companies are recruiting college cheerleaders for sales positions.”

Photo credit: SimonL via flickr

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