Tracking the fate of U.S. healthcare reform is like watching a patient being wheeled into the operating room while the surgeons bicker in the corridor over the best way to save his life. Despite the current level of uncertainty surrounding the mid-summer debate, medical device makers should emerge from the legislative operation in relatively good health, according to several industry executives and at least one analyst.

Given the focus on cost containment, obvious concerns have surfaced over the ultimate impact on device sales, company profits, product development, and investor confidence. But a quick roundup of industry opinions reveals both a commitment to the Obama administration’s reform push and the overall belief that most device makers will weather pricing pressures—and any attendant business fallout—as they always have.

In June, AdvaMed, which had already announced its own healthcare reform package, helped to launch a “consensus” group with a broad plan to save up to $1.7 trillion within the next decade. In addition to the device industry’s trade association, the collaborative effort comprises AMA, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American Hospital Association, and the Service Employees International Union.

Group members point to savings that are just $300 million shy of President Obama’s $2-trillion target. A letter sent by the consensus group to Obama cited four areas in which costs could be trimmed. Group members advocate more-efficient use of healthcare tools to improve the quality and safety of care, creation of methods to lower costs in order to benefit more persons, and streamlining claims processing. They also support better management of chronic disease, which accounts for 75% of overall spending on healthcare, the members note.

David Nexon, AdvaMed’s executive vice president, says his association’s member companies are on the same page in support of the reform efforts, regardless of their respective sizes. “We do have a remarkably unified voice on this issue,” he says. “I think it’s a tribute to our member companies, which are so diverse, that they have been able to get a unified position.”

More than two years ago, AdvaMed endorsed its own “comprehensive health plan providing for universal coverage and a responsible approach to cost containment that, in large measure, is reflected in the Obama plan,” Nexon points out. “So we start from a pretty good base.”

‘More Pluralistic System’

Noting that AdvaMed’s members are “on board with the general thrust” of the reform effort, Nexon says the association nevertheless has been keeping an eye on a few issues of concern for device makers. These are centralized decision-making, comparative effectiveness research, and the nature of the specific cuts needed to finance a health reform bill.

Nexon argues that centralized decision-making “is bad for patients and bad for medical innovation. I think you have to have some kind of minimum benefits [package] to make universal coverage meaningful, but we don’t want to have centralized decision-making over specific devices, drugs, or procedures.” AdvaMed’s viewpoint is that medical service providers are served better by “a more pluralistic system” that keeps decisions “in the realm of the patient and the doctor.”

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