Endo exec: Make health insurance mandatory

You are currently viewing Endo exec: Make health insurance mandatory

Health insurance should be mandatory, but it should be through the private sector not government. So said David Holveck, president and chief executive officer of Endo Pharmaceuticals of Chadds Ford.

Addressing members of the Chadds Ford Business Association during a CFBA breakfast meeting at the Chadds Ford Township building March 4, Holveck said the United States should maintain its employer-based healthcare system, that the federal government should not be the healthcare provider.

His view is that the individual state governments should make health insurance mandatory as they now do with automobile insurance, and that the federal government should focus on the economy and the creation of more jobs. Having the federal government address healthcare before the economy is like treating a symptom, rather that a cause, he said.

“The private sector has to bring more people into the healthcare system to defer costs,” he said in a private interview after his talk. “So the idea of carrying mandatory insurance is the best approach. That coupled with the consumer paying more for their co-pays, so they’re more aware of what they’re getting and what it costs them.”

He said he sees no other way of making our healthcare system more affordable or in getting more access for more people. The overall goal he said, is to lower the overall cost and bring more access to healthcare.

“The best approach is more jobs,” Holveck said. “That would go a long way. In light of a sluggish job recovery, then you’re going to have to mandate and put more healthy people into the equation…Anybody who gets out of college or goes into a job, they have to have health insurance like you have to have auto insurance.”

He said the system needs people who will pay into it, but not draw on it.

Holveck added that making insurance mandatory would have to come from the state level because states must have a balanced budget, unlike the federal government.

But Holveck said there’s another step to be taken, a step that would work to reduce the cost of healthcare itself, not reducing the cost of health insurance. That way is through tort reform and doing away with the need to perform tests that are now done for the purpose of avoiding lawsuits.

“One of the ways is to relieve defensive medical issues. If you relieve defensive medical issues, then you can set up more health clinics using non-physicians to be your first line of defense for people who, if we could treat earlier, would avoid more expensive issues later,” Holveck said.

Tort reform and alternative delivery networks would give more people affordable access to health care, Holveck said. He likened the alternative delivery networks to a military triage system where patients see a medic first, then see a doctor only if necessary.

“I don’t have a doctor in every platoon. I have a medic. And that triage system works pretty well,” he said. “…We’re finding, if you can give access earlier, you really do cut the cost of managing a more chronic or critical disease later.”

Holveck became president and CEO of Endo in April 2008. He was previously an executive Johnson & Johnson and with Centacor. He also worked for General Electric, Corning Glass and Abbott Laboratories.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...

Comments

comments

Leave a Reply