Shawn Tully's Fortune Magazine series on fixing the U.S. health care system continues today, intersecting this blog for the first time. Tully has been a senior writer at Fortune for a very long time and he is among the finest practitioners of long-form magazine journalism. Here he shows how to boil down complex issues to make it clear where the real problems are - and he does it without engaging in politics or political argument.
His four points about the favored status of Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, unintended consequences of rate deals negotiated by Medicare and Medicaid, including driving out potential new competition, deliberately restricting the supply of doctors and curtailing investment in new medical facilities, identify basic problems in pricing that should be amenable to bi-partisan solutions.
Multi-part series are tricky to pitch because often the reporter has basically one mammoth story in mind when he or she starts it, broken into parts only because of length. So when you call after part one and ask "Did you look at why Blue Cross' contract in New Jersey prevents other insurers from undercutting them with the major hospitals," if it doesn't fit the outline he has in his head, it won't go anywhere.
Still, the volume and variety of business leaders, industry consultants and service providers quoted in this article would definitely make me want to get in on the party.
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