Our Plan
We are hard at work putting together what will become our initial HHS Open Government Plan, debuting on April 7. We appreciate the input and advice you have given us. We will be seeking your ideas regarding the key elements of this plan when it is announced.
An outline of what we envision will be our Open Government Plan’s five major sections is provided below. We welcome thoughts and ideas with respect to each of these topics.
Guiding Principles
The overarching principles we should follow as we pursue our efforts to make HHS more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.
Leadership and Governance
How can Open Government efforts be led and managed at HHS on an ongoing basis – and how can HHS incorporate these efforts into the fabric of HHS governance and operations? (Example: changes in current HHS practices and policies, etc.)
Transparency
How can HHS promote accountability, improve public understanding of what HHS does, help illuminate what’s going on with respect to the nation’s health and well-being, help spark action and innovation to bring Americans inside HHS and our operating divisions? (Examples: web casting, video, data sets we should publish, feedback on the quality of the data, etc.)
Participation
How can HHS improve the ability for the public to participate in HHS matters, encourage contributions of ideas and expertise by citizens on key issues? (Example: new feedback mechanisms that create easier methods of public engagement, innovative methods such as prizes and competitions, the use of technology platforms to facilitate new forms of engagement, etc.)
Collaboration
How can HHS facilitate cooperation and partnerships across the government, and boost collaboration between the government and private institutions? (Example: data sets that can be used by other organizations, technology platforms, common tools or formats, business practices, etc.)
Innovation
Submit innovative ideas for major new transparency, participation, and/or collaboration initiatives that HHS can implement to improve agency operations and better serve Americans. What partners should HHS collaborate with for this initiative? What tools or platforms should HHS use for this initiative?
We encourage you to share your thoughts on this process, ideas how we can improve this dialogue, and other general comments in the section below.
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The employees of a company constitute a health care risk pool which can negotiate for a better price because of the amount of income to a health care insurance provider they represent. It is the number of people in the pool and their overall health that matter for negotiating purposes. Individuals and small businesses should be able to create organizations to create their own health care risk pools. This would give them the same negotiating power of larger companies. HHS could provide data on the size of a risk pool, age distribution, etc. needed to be able to negotiate a good price for members of the risk pool from health insurance providers. If individuals and small businesses are not able to create their own risk pools, HHS could collaborate with Congress on the necessary legislation. Being able to be a member of a risk pool not associated with an employer makes health insurance portable across employers.
there are many different estimates concerning public healthcare waste fraud and abuse. these estimates range from a low of 10% of the $1.7 Trillion spent to a high of 30%. The first number comes from FBI statements, the second numer comes from a Coopers study issued last November, 2009. As I understand it there are 4,900 claims filed per hour and 30 terabytes of data collected each quarter of each year. If the rediculously low estimate is correct (10%) how much of the $170Billion spent on waste, fraud and abuse actually collected back and what does it cost to do that collection? There are a host of questions that revolve around waste fraud and abuse issues. If the claims data in public healthcare programs are contaminated by as little as 10% of claims or as much as 30% of claims, how can Congress, the President, HHS, OMB or anyone know what the true cost of health care really is? How do we know that the rising costs are not a result of the fraud increasing faster than the cost for healthcare. Even the TV show 60 minutes has run stories that address this same set of questions. Without understanding this waste, fraud, and abuse, how can HHS understand anything about what is going on with expenditures or to what to attribute costs to? Finally, let us allow for the possibility that waste, fraud and abuse accounts for 20-30% of the cost of public health care in the US. How does anyone know what policies work and don't work, how universal health care is or is not important and how to fund whatever policy and programs dutyfully passed into law. These are fundamental problems which must be properly and comprehensively addressed or any policy on this topic is merely just opinion and none of the policies to date are based on facts, the data is that polluted.
please make all advisory committees and policy making public meetings live and archived as webcasts on the internet and be sure to make them searchable by transcripts and keywords. This would be an extremely valuable dataset for citizens to be able to participate and become more informed in the actual decision making process of our government!
I have a great innovation that would help in Health and Human Services. Ask me....
It would be great to have an HHS-wide calendar that had all public meetings on it. Offices could be required or encouraged to submit their public meetings to this calendar through an online form.
You are definitely to be commended for your /open website. Thank you for taking the lead on following through with the President's Directive. I have been trying to learn more about how HHS is advised on the decisions that you see in your data sets. Do you plan on providing more transparency into the boards that advise HHS on the policies you set forth like providing live webcasts of your public advisory committees? It seems like that is a very important way to engage the public at an early stage so we can have a better opportunity to help shape and support the work of HHS. Thank you!
Having seen the workings of DHHS or HHS,I believe that the agency should "clean house" from the top down. Frequently,there are several people who don't do their jobs, aren't doing their jobs and may not know how to do their jobs. There is also training needed for the staff to learn how to be friendly and not just civil to the public.
I agree so many of them don't do their jobs and do need training but who is to train them? If it was just that easy. If they would just stick to the point and not add other stuff into their proposed bills maybe we would consider it.
I would like to know who are exactly the people who determine the amount of income to qualify for medicaid? I would like them to see my income and try to pay for my household bills and try to pay for my scripts and doctor bills. I don't think that someone who is on disability and a husband on unemployment can have to much income to qualify for medicaid.
In addition to access for people with disabilities, please work to take the jargon out of government language. Need to be able to understand to participate fully.
How do you plan to involve the American public? Until I was dx'd with cancer I did not know that the public could access any of the information and meetings. Unless someone was/is sick do they know this is available? How can we get the word out that they can participate?
Good idea to get rid of jargon
I am confused. Who are you? I know you like data, but I am have a disconnect. You ask me my name and location, but didn't identify yourself. Thx!