Healthcare letter to Americans: Is there another way?

The following is the preamble to a Healthcare letter to Americans written by Oakleigh Ryan. Please read and follow this link to read her excellent letter on Healthcare.

August 2009

Healthcare letter to Americans: Is there another way?

I read an article recently that compared the healthcare reform in Washington to sausage making. It is messy, and you aren’t quite sure what is inside. The problem is that Americans are going to have to “eat” what ever is the final product.

In talking to friends and family, many share concerns regardless of their political allegiance. Almost everyone says we need reform in healthcare but question if the current process will deliver what we need. A sense of hopelessness appears as if this “healthcare mess” is so complicated and so big, that the normal American couldn’t begin to understand the detail.

I do not believe this needs to be the case and have written this letter to help more people be confident and passionate about participating in the reform process. To do, this I believe it is important to:

• Share how the current reform has failed to address the key components of timing, participation, goals and motivation; and

• Offer what could be a true strategic reframing of an industry through an outcome-oriented approach that is led by industry reformers including consumers and physicians not just politicians.

What motivates me? I have worked within healthcare my entire professional career from hospitals to clinical laboratories to pharmaceuticals. This exposure even included time beyond our shores when I spent four years working with the UK National Health Service to modernize its laboratories. Living in England, we received healthcare both from the National Health Service and the private system. As a family we have had to shop for healthcare insurance and faced the possibility of not being insured. As a mother, I am the healthcare organizer, appointment maker and expense keeper. And I have been a patient at MD Anderson Cancer Center since 2002 and know that my active role and the relationship I was able to have with my physicians in a world-class organization impacted my good health today.

Oakleigh Ryan lives with her family in Janesville, WI with her husband Tobin, and two children. She can be reached at oakleigh@healthcareletter.com or by visiting healthcareletter.com.