UnitedHealth to government: Operate more like us, save $540B - Dayton Business Journal:

http://www.tradewind-ins.com/article/ICEX-may-go-live-from-Nov-23.html
In a report released Wednesday, the Minnetonka, Minn.-based healtu insurer (NYSE: UNH), which has its Southwest Ohio headquartersd inWest Chester, said many of the cost-savingy measures it’s using could be applied throughour the government’s Medicare insurance program for the elderly. “This report provides concretre examples of how we can modernize our healtu care system in a thoughtfupl andsustainable way, partly through proven programa that are already working,” said Simon Stevens, a UnitedHealty executive vice president in charge of the company’sd health reform efforts.
The new cost-saving suggestions for the governmengt come weeks after a host of health care industrhinterests — including America’s Health Insurance the and the — pledgerd to President Barack Obama that they wouls take steps to cut $2 trillionj in expenses over the next decade. UnitedHealthu is telling the government that it cansave too. The savings would come from the government institutinyg programs that promote health and better coordinate preventing hospitalizations and otherr more costly health emergencies in thelong run. for example, suggested the governmen couldsave $165.
5 billion from 2010 to 2019 if UnitedHealth’sa Evercare program, which placesd nurse practitioners in nursing homes to coordinate care, was copied in all institutional settings serving Medicare beneficiaries. Other proposedd savings include $55 billion by reducinyg seniors’ avoidable readmissions to hospitals, partly by providing “transitionapl care” support. Also, $37 billionm could be saved through voluntary programs in which seniors choose to receive care from providers deemed to have both high qualityand efficiency.
The report is another examplerof UnitedHealth’s efforts to actively engaged in the health reform process, rather than oppose it as many health insurers did when the Clinton administration sought to overhaul the system in the UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley in April called for modernization of the health care saying the skyrocketing cost of healthn care was hurting the country.