Texas Medical Association's Healthy Vision 2010 Summits

The Texas Medical Association (TMA) embarked on a series of three health summits in 2006 to establish a vision for the future of health care that is rigorously developed and vetted with a broad group of stakeholders from medicine, business, health care and government. The framework for the summit is TMA’s Healthy Vision 2010, the association’s long-term, comprehensive health care vision for the state, reflecting the principles of good medicine and cost-effective delivery systems.

The two primary goals of this Healthy Vision 2010 Summit were:

1)    To build support among political and business leaders for the “treatment” for the Texas health care system that TMA prescribes in Healthy Vision 2010, 2nd edition, and

2)    To obtain agreement to develop a collaborative legislative agenda that encompasses some or all of TMA’s Healthy Vision 2010 prescription.

Through this Summit series, TMA was focused on two primary challenges for the health care system: 

1)    Reducing the number of uninsured Texans and

2)    Increasing the use of community- and employer-based wellness programs

Selected highlights of the recommendations for both the uninsured and for wellness programs are listed below.

The Uninsured

To facilitate public-private partnerships to help small employers provide health coverage for their workers, the State of Texas should:

1.     Provide tax incentives for businesses to offer health insurance benefits to employees, if those benefits include wellness programs and preventive services.

2.     Establish and market an actuarially sound, statewide insurance pool for small employers (fewer than 50 employees). Participating employers would receive tax benefits. The pool would offer basic catastrophic coverage and other elements of the basic essential benefit package. 

3.     Maximize federal match available for Medicaid/CHIP to capture dollars currently left on the table. Some of the captured funds would be used to incentivize small businesses to offer “3-Share” type programs to their employees.

4.     Expand recent legislation allowing governmental agencies to give bid points/preferences to employers who provide some type of health insurance to their employees. These preferences would be expanded to include to all forms of government statewide.

5.     Establish a public/private partnership including business organizations, physicians and other health care organizations, and appropriate state and local agencies to educate businesses on the need to provide health insurance for employees.

Wellness

To enhance wellness from both the employer and community perspective, the State of Texas should:

1.     Launch educational programs on health, nutrition, and fitness through government entities at all levels, in collaboration with private businesses and organizations.

2.     Undertake a campaign to educate employers about the positive return on investment from wellness programs.

3.     Partner with private companies that have established wellness programs. Provide and authorize incentives to encourage healthy behavior and discourage unhealthy behavior. These incentives would include premium adjustments and tax incentives.

4.     Place all state employees in a wellness program.

5.     Ban tobacco use in all public places.

These recommendations for the uninsured and for wellness were fully vetted and discussed at the last of the three summits which took place in October. Recommendations from the Healthy Vision 2010 Summits will serve as the basis of a health coalition moving forward for consensus action when the Texas Legislature convenes in January, 2007.

In conclusion, TMA physician leaders used the summit process to forge important decisions about where common ground might unite many groups to seek more global, transformational change in the health care system.  Beyond TMA’s traditional advocacy for individual patient care and socioeconomic issues, the Healthy Vision 2010 Summits provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to pursue public policy objectives that focus more broadly on addressing the pervasive problem of providing care for the uninsured and promoting public health, wellness and individual responsibility for attaining/maintaining good health.