Intermountain Healthcare lauded, but Utah lawmakers not sold

President Barack Obama presented an interesting idea to Congress Wednesday on how to cut health-care costs to pay for insurance reform: Copy Intermountain Healthcare in Utah.

Despite that nice hometown shout-out, Obama failed to persuade anyone in Utah's congressional delegation to firmly support his reforms. Even lone Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson wants to see more details before deciding.

Meanwhile, Utah health groups had reactions to the speech ranging from guarded optimism to outright concern that Obama's plan goes every which way — all of them wrong.

Obama said in his speech Wednesday, "We have long known that some places, like the Intermountain Healthcare in Utah or the Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania, offer high-quality care at costs below average."

He said he wants a commission to study what they and other high-quality programs do.

He said that "can help encourage the adoption of these common-sense best practices by doctors and medical professionals throughout the system — everything from reducing hospital infection rates to encouraging better coordination between teams of doctors."

Obama added, "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan" of reform that he is proposing.

It was not the first time that Obama has mentioned Intermountain. He has pointed to it, Geisinger and the Mayo Clinic several times as he has traveled around the country giving speeches on health-care reform.

In December, the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice put Intermountain in the same league with the Mayo Clinic.

It even said that, "Were all providers in the country to achieve the same level of efficiency for inpatient spending on supply-sensitive care, we estimate … a 43 percent reduction (in hospital spending) under an Intermountain benchmark."

Greg Poulsen, senior vice president for Intermountain, said the Dartmouth study showed costs at Intermountain are "about one-third lower than the national average," yet outcomes are laudable by national standards.

Responding to the president's remark, he said, "We believe in the goals of providing health care in the most effective and efficient ways possible and are gratified and honored that it was mentioned."