Group Health Co-Op Seen As Compromise Model For Health Care Reform

An interesting article in today's New York Times reports on Washington State's Group Health Cooperative and how its system of providing health care to its members is viewed in some quarters as a model for reforming health care. Known to many in the Seattle area as "Group Death," the co-op has its detractors and fans, but it certainly enjoys a better reputation that does Kaiser Permanente.

GHC's alleged advantages come from keeping costs low, using electronic medical records to save doctors time and the fact that docs are paid a salary and outside of the usual fee-for-procedure reimbursement system. How effective a system of co-ops around the country like GHC would be at getting coverage for all uninsured Americans at an affordable price while keeping costs low isn't clear. And, remaining unanswered, is how bringing 40 million or so new people into the health care system would affect access to services. It's not like you could open GHCs around the country and suddenly staff them with doctors and nurses without pulling those people from somewhere else in the system.

What the article and promotion of a co-op solution by some in Congress suggest to me is that the so-called public option for health care reform is pretty much dead. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.