"Smiley Face, Frowny Face" Energy Conservation Program, Cost-Effective Health Care at Mayo Clinic Offer Hope
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9,
2008
Portland – Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick, noting two recent reports on successes in reducing energy consumption and controlling health care costs, today emphasized his commitment to offering comprehensive, evidence-based solutions to the national challenges of health care and global warming.
"Every Democratic candidate this year is talking about fighting global warming though investing in renewable energy and expanding access to health care – both of which are are critical parts of taking on these challenges," said Novick. "But as I've said throughout this campaign, we also need to fight global warming by conserving energy. And we need to control health care costs before rising costs strangle private industry and federal, state and local governments. These recent reports offer hope on both of those fronts."
A new study on energy conservation indicates that encouraging consumers to use electricity more efficiently may be as simple as a little reinforcement on their bill. As the New York Times recently reported:
A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.
Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly ncreasing their consumption — not exactly the goal of the project.
That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal. [3/25/08, emphasis added]
"I firmly believe that people generally want to do the right thing and, sometimes they just need a little information, a little push, a little reward," Novick said. "In this case, just a minor change to our power bills could help us fight global warming. Federal, state and local governments should give power companies incentives to adopt such simple, straightforward methods to encourage conservation."
Another recent study similarly suggests that by changing the incentives for how doctors approach health care treatment in end of life cases, costs can be reduced. A comparison of care at the Mayo Clinic teaching hospital and UCLA Medical Center noted that the Mayo Clinic was able to offer comparable care at a significantly lower cost.
The study showed expenditures in the last two years of life averaging $53,432 for patients who received most of their care at the Mayo Clinic teaching hospital in Rochester, New York, compared to $93,842 for those receiving most of their care at UCLA Medical Center. As the New York Times reported, the study's author, Dr. John Wennburg of Dartmouth Medical School, noted that doctors and hospitals that provided more care, or more intensive care, did not necessarily achieve better results for patients.
"Some chronically ill and dying Americans are receiving too much care — more than they and their families actually want or benefit from," Dr. Wennberg said. "Contrary to popular assumptions, it's the volume of services, not the price per service, that accounts for most of the variation in Medicare spending."
[..]
The president of the Mayo Clinic, Denis Cortese, offered an explanation for the results. "Our physicians are all salaried," Dr. Cortese said. "They have no financial incentive to do more than is necessary for the patient. In each case, multiple doctors and nurses make decisions collaboratively with the patient and family members. We really try to understand the patient's wishes for end-of-life care." [4/7/08]
"We continue to see further confirmation of what John Kitzhaber has been talking about for years and I've emphasized in my campaign, that we need to move from a 'pay by the procedure' model to a 'pay for a course of treatment' model to pay for health care," Novick said. "If we are going to bring costs under control, we need to pay providers based on what evidence shows is the most effective and cost-effective course of treatment for a particular condition. Pay-by-the-procedure medicine provides an incentive to multiply procedures, regardless of effectiveness. It's not that providers deliberately set out to conduct unnecessary procedures, but people respond, even subconsciously, to incentives."
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