By Gregg Hoffmann
Health care is a growing industry in western Wisconsin.
Recent reporting in the River Valley Business Report details the multi-million-dollar growth in facilities run by Gundersen Lutheran, Franciscan Skemp Healthcare and other facilities in the region — investments affecting residents of La Crosse, Onalaska, Black River Falls, Viroqua, Tomah and other communities.
Officials cite a growing demand, as baby boomers age and require more health care, as breakthroughs in research require health care facilities to stay current, as technology grows, and as patients demand more services.
Overall, it’s good for the area that these facilities are growing. They provide services and employ people in a variety of skilled and professional positions.
But the biggest question has to be, “What does all this do to health care costs?” The crisis in costs and health insurance has been well documented nationally, and western Wisconsin definitely isn’t immune to the trend.
A 2005 study showed higher-than-average health costs for La Crosse. The study indicated La Crosse had the third-highest health insurance costs of any metro area in Wisconsin.
La Crosse County Board members said at the time the study validated the county’s experience with health care hyperinflation — a 220 percent increase in the past 10 years.
Some local health care executives disputed the findings. Dr. Robert Nesse, president and CEO of Franciscan Skemp Healthcare, claimed the findings were based on data from the state’s employee health insurance plan. The Madison area looks much less expensive, he told the La Crosse Tribune, because health providers are competing to serve the thousands of state employees.
Dr. Jeffrey E. Thompson, CEO of Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, told the newspaper, “Although this study disagrees with the more comprehensive Wisconsin study on costs done by the Milwaukee Business Foundation and a national study on cost and quality done by Dartmouth, we can all agree that the burden of health care costs is very great and will need big changes from the health care providers as well as significant efforts from business, the government, and the public to help slow the rate of rise in health care expenditures.”
So, by no means, have the CEOs and others at the area facilities gone on a building spree without recognizing the need to control costs of the care that will be provided within these buildings.
One of the administrators at Vernon Memorial Healthcare might have struck at one of the problems when he said “health care is a competitive business.” Certainly, we all like having the choices in our health care decisions that competition can bring.
But several national studies have cited the need for health care facilities to also share technologies, research facilities and other things to keep costs down. Hopefully, as the facilities in western Wisconsin expand they consider such measures.
Several facilities in the region already participate in the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium, which primarily concentrates on sharing research. Perhaps the group could also work on ways of sharing resources and keeping costs affordable.
Bricks and mortar alone don’t necessarily lead to great education, government, corporations or health care. It’s good that the health care industry is alive and growing in western Wisconsin. As the old joke goes, “It beats the alternative.”
But let’s hope that growth is being undertaken with an intelligent eye on balancing services and costs, so all people can afford the former and not bankrupt themselves because of the latter.
