Willing To Be Persuaded (Editorial)

The recent news that four hospital systems and the state’s dominant health insurance company have formed a “shared services organization” was greeted triumphantly — by the organizations involved.

In the peanut gallery, we’re not sure what to think. Similar shared services organizations have sprung up around our nation, which continues to try to find some way to keep the cost of health care from devouring the rest of our economy.

But this one is unusual — maybe even unique — because it includes Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield.

Traditionally, we’ve been uncomfortable when the providers and the payer are too chummy. We’ve been around long enough to remember, in the days before “any willing provider,” when a favored provider didn’t have to worry about being underbid. Consumers have to trust our insurers to get the best possible prices, and we’ve seen too much evidence that that hasn’t always happened.

But we’ve also noted that health care does not behave like other commodities. More competition does not necessarily drive down costs; sometimes, it has the opposite effect because of duplication of wildly expensive equipment and services that must be paid for.

And we’ve noticed that both St. Vincent Health System and QualChoice health insurance company are now owned by Catholic Health Initiatives, so the line is already blurry.

The other members of The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas are Baptist Health and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, St. Bernards Healthcare in Jonesboro and Washington Regional Medical System in Fayetteville.

As Dr. Dan Rahn, the chancellor of UAMS assured us, it’s not a merger. It’s an agreement to seek efficiencies.

Let’s just say we’re willing to be persuaded that The Partnership for a Healthy Arkansas will do what its organizers say it aims to do: improve health care quality and lower costs.