Healthcare Co-ops?
added 08/21/09
You hear a lot about healthcare cooperatives these days. What do co-ops have to say?
Power to the Cooperative People:
Healthcare in the Hands of Co-ops
Our good friends at Davis Food Co-op in Davis, California, perhaps have said it best: Please take the opportunity to educate yourself about some of the diverse needs that can be met by independent, well-capitalized cooperatives.
Armed with information from a wide variety of perspectives, we are all better equipped to make our own decisions. And when it comes to the cooperative industry’s potential role in healthcare reform, the good folks at the National Cooperative Business Association have created this web page to inform the public about what might make healthcare cooperatives viable in more places and situations.
Brief Background on the Issue
As the standard political battle lines are drawn in the ongoing healthcare debate, some say cooperatives may provide the path of least partisan resistance. But moderate or not, could a co-op plan even work?
According to a recent article in U.S. News & World Report, the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan group of six senators—led by Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican—favors healthcare cooperatives over the public plan of a purely government-run healthcare option.
Healthcare cooperatives are nonprofits or not-for-profits that operate under the values and guiding principles of the cooperative movement, just like credit unions, food and energy cooperatives, and other forms of cooperative enterprise.
There are currently a handful of healthcare cooperatives in the United States, including the highly successful HealthPartners—a midwest cooperative that covers more than a million people in Minnesota and Wisconsin. According to the U.S. News & World Report story, healthcare cooperatives like HealthPartners not only sell insurance, but often own their own hospitals and clinics—making them somewhat of a one-stop-shop for consumers.
Learn More
Want to learn more about healthcare cooperatives and the role they may play in the current healthcare reform debate? Browse the links below for varying viewpoints on the subject:
- For the complete U.S. News & World Report article, click here.
- Slate weighs in.
- The Washington Post writes about the public plan that isn’t.
- The National Cooperative Business Association covers the subject from a cooperative viewpoint in the online report: Focus on Healthcare Cooperatives 2009.
- The Los Angeles Times reports on the centrist view of healthcare.
- The Hufffington Post comments on why a cooperative plan would fail.
- Examples of healthcare cooperatives that are thriving and covering vast numbers of plan subscribers: Group Health Cooperative of Seattle, Washington, and HealthPartners of Minneapolis, Minnestoa.
- The Alliance for Employee Benefit Cooperatives website describes how cooperatives can serve as an organizing means to complement health benefits reform.
- CNN reports on what farmers say about the issue.
What Do You Think?
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