HMA exec: Health care reform likely to be incremental
by February 17, 2010 6:30 am 60 views
A corporate boss over Summit Medical hospital in Van Buren and Sparks Health System in Fort Smith says national health care reform is likely to come in incremental changes rather than a “radical” one-time change.
Britt Reynolds, division I president for Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates, told around 250 gathered Tuesday at The Compass Conference that the previous debate about health care reform and continued debate is good for a national health care system that is not a perfect system.
“We welcome the transparency that (continued debate) brings,” Reynolds said.
HMA purchased Sparks Health System in a $138-million deal that closed Nov. 30. Reynolds oversees hospital operations in Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. HMA operates 55 hospitals in 15 states and employs about 33,700. The publicly held (NYSE: HMA) hospital company is directly and indirectly affiliated with 8,000 physicians.
Reynolds explained that the existing national health care system is a “band-aid fixed system” that has evolved over several decades. Although noting that the proposed health care reform bill would have been good for hospitals, Reynolds said it may be problematic to remove all the band-aids at one time.
The basic reason the health care bill would have helped hospitals is it would have resulted in hospitals seeing more patients and providing less charity (free) care, according to Reynolds. But Reynolds said the health care bill was not perfect. He said tort reform was missing, patient choice could have been limited, and the bill would potentially over-regulate the health care sector.
As far as health care in the Fort Smith/Van Buren area, Reynolds said the HMA goal is to provide greater access with affordability and quality care. He said HMA does not run the hospitals from Naples, but instead is there to support a management team that makes local decisions. He also said HMA is in the market for the long term, noting that the company “doesn’t buy and sell hospitals.”