In the effort to improve healthcare outcomes for American families, few things matter more than ensuring access to quality care — a rare statement on which there is broad bipartisan agreement. Creating pathways to preventive care, in particular, is crucial to addressing chronic conditions like obesity and diabetes that have long-term costs and place extraordinary stress on our healthcare system.
But if we are to deliver on this promise amidst the complexity of our current healthcare system, we must have talented leaders who not only possess the ability to develop effective solutions, but also the fortitude to build the coalitions necessary to see them through.
One such leader is Seema Verma, a healthcare innovator nominated to serve as administrator of the CMS.
As the architect of Governor Mitch Daniels' Healthy Indiana Plan, Ms. Verma created the nation's first consumer-directed Medicaid program: delivering groundbreaking reform to the state's Medicaid program while garnering bipartisan support for how it expanded access and more fully-engaged lower income Indiana citizens in their healthcare choices.
Since the inception of HIP in 2007, our colleagues at St. Louis-based Ascension's 20-hospital system in Indiana have seen first-hand how HIP has improved the lives of countless Indiana residents. We've seen how its pioneering approach to expanding coverage for the most vulnerable had the added benefit of better equipping Indiana physicians and nurses to provide the quality care our citizens deserved.
Because of HIP, we were better able to engage those living in poverty and most vulnerable in their own healthcare, which is at the heart of our Mission.
Following the passage of the ACA in 2010, Ms. Verma again stepped forward to craft a creative and innovative approach that would even further expand care in Indiana.
At a time when there was little bipartisan agreement on healthcare policy, Ms. Verma helped Indiana become a bright spot of collaboration between Republican legislators and the Obama administration.
With nearly 400,000 Indiana residents facing the possibility of making too much for Medicaid, but too little to receive assistance on the new federal healthcare marketplace, Indiana faced a unique challenge. While the ACA offered states the ability to expand traditional Medicaid programs, leaders at the Indiana Statehouse wanted to do so in a way that didn't abandon the consumer-driven principles they'd established with passage of the original Healthy Indiana Plan.
The situation called for nuanced leadership and a commitment to help a diverse range of stakeholders, from hospitals to patient advocates, find common ground.
In partnership with then-Governor, now Vice President, Mike Pence, Ms. Verma spearheaded the development of HIP 2.0, bridging a partisan divide to create a new model for healthcare coverage.
By creating this new pathway to care for hundreds of thousands Indiana patients, HIP 2.0 helped realize the fundamental goal of healthcare reform: ensuring greater access to care. But by also including consumer-driven incentives that encouraged enrollees to be cost conscious, HIP 2.0 has also equipped patients to access the right care at the right time, rather than waiting for health problems to become emergent — a key priority for providers and lawmakers that can increase the quality of care and help reduce costs.
The results have been a tremendous success.
Nearly 350,000 Indiana citizens were enrolled in HIP 2.0 in its first year. Moreover, our physicians report that HIP members have responded well to the structure of their new coverage, including the consumer-driven elements that give patients and families a greater voice in directing their own care.
Seema Verma has made it her life's work to advocate for these patients, and her track record of success in Indiana makes her precisely the type of leader we need at the national level: an innovator able to cut through the partisan divide, fight for patients and deliver results that make healthcare accessible and far more affordable.
If her reputation in Indiana is any indication, Ms. Verma will bring a fresh perspective that can do for the nation what she's done for our patients. We strongly support her nomination and look forward to a continued partnership with her to ensure that low-income Americans not only have health insurance coverage, but access to quality care.
Dr. Anthony R. Tersigni is President and CEO of Ascension, the nation's largest non-profit, and the world's largest Catholic, health system. Jonathan Nalli is CEO of St. Vincent, a 20-hospital Ascension ministry in the state of Indiana.
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