Great leap forward?

HHS’s linguistic choices around Value-Driven Healthcare’s "Four Cornerstones" remind me of "Five Year Plans" as Bush’s value-driven healthcare agenda surges forward.  There’s certainly a surge of interest and involvement by more employers.  It’s a truism at this point, but it’s both very surprising and completely unsurprising that employers should be in favor of so much government involvement in the reshuffling of the health care reimbursement paradigms.

We also have a new Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (which I believe means Coalition to Decouple Health Care Insurance from Employment) on the scene, representing 40 big employers (tip of the hat to Peter Lucash at the Medical Practice Business Blog), joining the Wal-Mart and SEIU-led Better Health Care Together coalition.

Some of these ideas, nested within some of the health care reform proposals being bandied about by various presidential candidates, senators and representatives — not to mention governors — might actually start moving us in the right direction.  To return to the Chinese theme, we are both blessed and cursed to live in interesting times.

— David Harlow