Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association Statement: Health Care A...( Statement from Scott P. Serota Pr...),Health

Statement from Scott P. Serota, President and CEO Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

WASHINGTON, July 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scott P. Serota, president and chief executive officer of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, issued the following statement today in response to the launch of a new healthcare coalition, Health Care America Now:

"The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association agrees strongly with the Health Care America Now coalition that everyone should have health insurance coverage and that achieving this goal should be a top priority of the next administration and Congress. Regrettably, rather than seeking to build on this shared vision and find common ground among all stakeholders, Health Care America Now is attacking health insurers, which does nothing to help build a consensus on how to address the problem of the uninsured.

"Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies prefer to offer solutions. We have a comprehensive proposal, 'The Pathway to Covering America,' that builds on today's employer-based system and improves the quality and value of our healthcare system, while simultaneously making coverage available to everyone. While we support coverage for all, we remain concerned that a healthcare system that is unaffordable for many today will not work for even more people tomorrow. That is why our proposal not only looks at how to bring more people into the system, but how to maximize value for the more than 160 million people who currently have coverage through the employer-based system.

"To address the cost problem, our system needs more research on what drugs, devices, and procedures work well, and we must put that information quickly into the hands of providers and consumers. With an estimated 30 percent of health spending going to services that are unnecessary, duplicative, or yielding no tangible value, there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency that can be wrung from the system. Similarly, we need to
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