For Business Leaders

Introduction

With a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Coalition on Health Care sponsored a briefing series for businesses that would engage business leaders in a dialogue about the critical role that corporate America has in determining the health of the nation. These highly informative and thought-provoking sessions sought to:

• Encourage America’s foremost business leaders to extend their vision beyond the immediate cost issues surrounding the provision of health care benefits to include a broader understanding of the meaningful role that business has in determining the nation’s future health care environment.
• Provide detailed briefings and analysis on national trends relative to cost, quality and access that will demonstrate how these three interrelated issues are impacting businesses and the nation.
• Illustrate the long-term societal costs that result from short-term cost-saving measures taken by both the private and public sectors.

The Coalition believes that corporate America plays a key role in the health care system, by providing health care coverage to most workers and their families. The intent was to challenge America’s most innovative, resourceful business minds to apply their collective wisdom to understanding and addressing the problems facing America’s health care system.1999 Executive Business Series

Leading executives around of the country attended Executive Briefings on Health Care which were conducted by the Coalition in conferences held in San Diego, Washington, and Houston, which completed the Coalition’s Executive Briefing Series. These conferences were designed to enhance business leaders’ understanding of the potential for their involvement in the health care system, as well as the limitations on their individual actions to resolve the major health care problems.

In San Diego, the Coalition’s meeting was co-sponsored by Scripps, Qualcomm, and SAIC (Scientific Applications International Corporation), three large businesses in the San Diego area. The meeting held in Houston was co-sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership, the city’s major business group. In Washington, the Coalition’s meeting was co-sponsored by a Coalition member, the Communications Workers of America. Leaders of all the major communication firms in the country convened in Washington for a dialogue on health care issues.

The meetings were facilitated by Dr. Michael Maccoby, president of the Maccoby Group. Presentations were made by Dr. Henry Simmons, the Coalition’s president, Kenneth Thorpe then director of Tulane University’s Institute for Health Services Research, (now at Emory University), and Mark Goldberg, Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.

1998 Executive Briefing Series