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"...Major League Middle Class Anxiety."

Knowledge@Wharton reports on a panel discussion about the prospects for health care reform.
"...a statistical backdrop for the panel's discussion: 42 million Americans uninsured, another 40 million under-insured, about 16% of the nation's GDP spent on health care. "Health insurance now costs 17% of family income," ... up from about 7% in the early 1990s... Despite all those dollars, though, "a third of what we spend on health care right now adds no value."
It's that last statement that gets me. Though I agree the system contains huge amounts of slop, I'm also acutely aware that one person's "non-value-added spending" is the next person's - or lobbyist's - income. No medical pun intended, but the the streets'll be slick with blood before that debate is finished.

And here, futurist Joe Flowers echoes my "...in crisis comes opportunity.." mantra, advising that "The path out of crisis is the path to the future."
"If there ever was a time to demonstrate value, to get your costs down and quality up at the same time, to get a firm hold on your processes, this is it. The economic crisis will force us all to look for the low-hanging fruit. And indeed, organizations that have seriously embraced “lean production” systems and the like routinely show improvements of 50 percent or more in their key metrics."
Strategists need to keep their organizations focused on the challenges of identifying, improving and delivering value to customers and the marketplace. And yes, along the way someone's ox will be gored. Hence the blood.

We waste one-third of our health care dollars, yet improvements of 50 percent or more in key metrics are there for the taking by anybody smart enough to learn and deploy a few powerful, simple techniques. And we're waiting for...what?


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