New Humana Health Education Website

The health insurance company Humana recently launched a website called “Stay Smart Stay Healthy” designed to present the complex questions of healthcare in accessible video presentations to consumers. The videos can be an excellent introductory tool for those interested in a basic overview of healthcare topics, but one should be careful to remember the source. Humana is a major health insurance corporation that is interested in pursuing reforms that will beneficially affect its own profit margin. For example, the video on healthcare costs attributes only 11% of every healthcare dollar to administrative costs and another 3% to insurer profits. Yet studies have repeatedly shown that administrative costs account for nearly 1/3 of all healthcare spending. [1] Nevertheless, the “Why do we need healthcare reform video?” is something to watch:



Notes

1. “Costs of Health Care Administration in the United States and Canada” (2003) Woolhandler S., Campbell T., Himmelstein D. NEJM; 349: 768-75. A free version is available here. Take note that the authors are involved with the PNHP initiative for a single payer system and therefore may have their own biases.

Michael Shusterman is the Editor in Chief of TuftScope (2009 - 2010).