Video: Get Up to Speed on Health Reform in 3 Minutes

There’s a great new video which attempts to distill and crystallize all of the issues relating to health care reform into 3 short minutes.  The big surprise is that it’s produced by Humana – one of the largest for-profit private insurers.

Humana has been producing these funky “whiteboard” style videos for several months now, but I’ve been reluctant to post most of them since they very clearly project not just information but a dominant point of view.  For example, their video on why health care costs so much suggests medical malpractice and defensive medicine is a worse problem than the administrative waste of insurance companies – something we know to be untrue.  Others don't so much present an idea for analysis but instead get locked into describing the minutiae of various products – including HSAs – that just so happen to be sold by Humana.  Good luck getting much information on the cons of HSAs in that video.

However, this one is a pretty good summation of many of the threads of the debate, particularly when it comes to cutting costs.  It’s by no means comprehensive – how could you be in 3 minutes?  But I’m surprised by the fact that they’re willing to mention single-payer as one of the solutions – indeed, it’s the first comprehensive solution mentioned – without any qualifying "but..." commentary whatsoever.  Try getting that level of prominence at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health reform!  Similarly the choice of a public plan that’s so anathema to AHIP and others is laid out in an unchallenged way – indeed, it’s somewhat inaccurately described as “what government employees have today.”

Dr. Michael Miller on his Health Policy and Communications Blog is also somewhat surprised, although I agree with his final analysis that “while it might make some people feel they understand the issues better, it really won’t move the debate forward to improve the US healthcare system.”  Don’t expect any sense of what private insurance is willing to give up (other than pre-existing conditions) or of how you take the big concepts on cost-cutting the video outlines and turn them into actual practical steps, let alone a practical step that won’t cause some combination of doctors, hospitals, pharma, medical device companies or, yes, private insurance to scream bloody murder.

But as surprised as I am to say so, given how often I've knocked Humana specifically for its Medicare Advantage plans, this would be a good video for someone completely new to the issues of our broken health care system to watch.