With leading health-care industry groups offering the Obama administration $2 trillion in savings over the next decade, School of Management Professor Stephen Davidson can discuss the implications.  He is the author of the soon to be published book “In Urgent Need of Reform: Saving the U.S. Healthcare System.”

“These organizatons are promising to reduce their charges in order to reduce the rate of increase in health care costs.  If it works, that would benefit many individuals needing services.  Their share of premiums might go up less because the insurers that provide their coverage would be paying out less to providers.

“There are two big ‘ifs.’  First is that since many of these organizations are membership groups, it will only work if their members — the companies and professionals providing the services and products — agree to do so.  Second, even if physicians and hospitals agree to hold the line on their charges, if the volume of services increases, expenditures will continue to rise.”

Contact Stephen Davidson, 617-353-7422, sdavidso@bu.edu

School of Management Professor Stephen Davidson, author of the soon-to-be-published “In Urgent Need of Reform: Saving the U.S. Healthcare System”, says that rather than resisting it, insurers could make the drive toward health-care reform an opportunity by transforming themselves into real managed-care organizations. 

“They can create or contract with group practices, invest in information technology, analyze utilization patterns, and help physicians deliver reliably good, cost-effective care.  This will enable them to not only define a constructive role for themselves in a new system, but also develop the capacity to add real value to the medical-care enterprise.”