Taxicab Confessions: Harvey's Health Reform Plan

President Obama, Peter Orszag, Doug Elmendorf, Senators Kennedy, Baucus, Dodd, and Grassley, HHS Secretary Sebelius, and Rep. Waxman, I hope you're listening.

You all should know, that at the very least, the health care reform debate is having a strong impact on the average citizen. They are following the debate closely and developing opinions on possible solutions. How much so? We at the In Vivo Blog and The RPM Report recently experienced it firsthand.

After a lovely rooftop event for health care watchers sponsored by Hill & Knowlton, we hopped in a cab at a respectable hour on our merry way home. Our cabbie, Harvey, somehow deciphered that we write a lot about health care. I believe what tipped Harvey off was us calculating exactly how PhRMA's $80 bil. deal would be scored by CBO, our love of the epic Senate HELP markup, and the lively debate over exactly what the final health reform bill will look like.

Harvey wanted to know more and more about our thoughts on where everything is headed. We explained as best we could in lay terms about the various pieces of legislation and where the different sides stood on the debate.

Here's the thing: Harvey knew a heck of a lot about health care policy. For example, we pointed out that a major issue in health care is payment reform and incentivizing doctors and hospitals to get paid for quality outcomes rather than volume of services.

"Exactly!" Harvey shouted. "The problem with the health care system today is that it has moved away from being about the patient. Health care reform must re-focus on the patient and the quality of care. It's not about volume of services."

As we reached our final destination after a long day of Congressional activities, Harvey said: "Do you mind if I pull over? I want to finish this conversation about health reform."

Um...sure...we'd love to talk more about it.

He then asked us whether there were any innovative projects out there that were focused on quality. We named a few: Geisinger, Billings, Intermountain Healthcare and the Medicare Physician Group Practice project.

"Wait, wait," Harvey interupted. "Let me get a pen." He got his pen and pad out. "How do you spell Geisinger?"

"G-E-I-S-I-N-G-E-R."

"And where is Geisinger?" Harvey asked us.

"Pennsylvania."

"And what do they do that's different from other hospital systems?"

We then explained Geisinger's system where they essentially hold to a tried-and-true quality system that has an important compliance component and if they make a mistake, they take on th extra costs.

"You know," Harvey began after our conversation about Geisinger and specifics about Intermountain and Medicare, "I think I have come up with the solution to reforming the health care system in this country."

Hmmm. I think Harvey could tell we were skeptical.

Harvey's proposal (slightly paraphrased):

"You create a number of "free" hospitals in each state. The number and location of hospitals would be dependent on the size and population distribution of a given state. The doctors who work at each hospital are paid a flat salary. Care at these hospitals would be completely free. The only pre-requisite is that patients would be completely restricted from suing. There would be no liability."

Twenty minutes after we had pulled over, he concluded: "That's the only answer I can see to the problem."

Sure, there aren't a lot of details to Harvey's plan but there's a larger lesson: Everybody appears to be engaged in the health care reform debate, so much so, that even our trusty cabdriver Harvey is coming up with innovative approaches to care.

While we don't expect to see the Harvey Provision in the Kennedy, Baucus, or Waxman bill, it's telling that the debate is trickling down to those who don't have a direct interest in health care policy and demonstrates that there is public momentum behind reform at the moment. Of course, things change quickly.

So President Obama and Chief of Staff Emanuel, Harvey is ready to brief you on his health reform plan if things stall in Congress. But you may want to leave the afternoon free for it.