Health Care as Seen by the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic

The March 1 issue of Fortune has an interview with Delos Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. The clinic is one of the most highly rated medical facilities in the country, and has the highest acuity patients of any hospital in the country. (That is, they have the sickest group of patients.) Dr. Cosgrove offers some interesting comments on health care costs. Like many others, he focuses attention on behavioral patterns--obesity, smoking, and exercise. He argues that the claim that we the quality of health care in the US is not very high is false. He also notes that health care costs will continue to rise, no matter what happens in Congress regarding health care reform. Why? One reason is we have more elderly and we can do more for the elderly today than in the past. He also notes that suffering has gone down. It is a nice counter to so much of what politicians claim about health care and what can be done.