New Paper: A Foundation’s Fight to Slow The Rate of State Health Spending
July 7th, 2010
by
Lee-Lee Prina
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Stephen Langel
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A new GrantWatch paper, “A Philanthropy Tackles Growth in Health Costs at the State Level” was released today as part of the July 2010 issue of Health Affairs. Authors David Sandman, senior vice president of the New York State Health (NYSHealth) Foundation, and Anthony Kovner, a professor of public health and health management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Management at New York University, describe the NYSHealth Foundation’s program—Strategies to Contain Health Care Costs in New York State. The foundation has committed nearly $7 million “to stimulate the development of innovative and replicable methods to contain health costs in the state,” the article says. New York State “is faced with particularly staggering health care expenses,” the authors add.
Why does the foundation think cost containment is so important? Sandman and Kovner say NYSHealth “considers containment of health system costs to be integrally linked to efforts to expand coverage.” If efficiencies in delivering care were realized, they point out; dollars could then be freed up for coverage expansions. Also, they note that “the importance of achieving savings is even greater in an environment in which state budget deficits loom large.” Cost containment is also needed so that people who have coverage can maintain it.
The article also describes how the NYSHealth Foundation chose the six projects that received funding under this program—providing a bird’s-eye view of a foundation’s thinking! Grants were awarded in the following areas: payment reform; reducing hospital readmissions; improving care transitions from hospital to a postacute setting; using arbitration to resolve disputes over medical injury; assessing which cost containment approaches would save the most money in New York State; and increasing the use of palliative care in hospitals.
“Philanthropy alone can hardly solve [the cost containment] problem,” the authors conceded. However, “it has an important role to play . . . because of its obligation to tackle big, seemingly intractable problems.”
The NYSHealth Foundation, a private foundation located in New York City, resulted from Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield’s conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity; the foundation received a portion of the proceeds from that conversion. The foundation funds projects in New York State; its priority areas are reducing the number of uninsured; improving diabetes prevention and management; and integrating mental health/substance use services.
For some background on cost containment, make sure to check out the September/October 2009 issue of Health Affairs, which has the theme “Bending the Cost Curve.”
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