The Adapted Public Utility Model

What is the Public Utility Model? 

Can you imagine paying for health care just as easily as you pay for your electric and water bill?  

·       Your health utility bill would be based on your address, not on your employment status. You would have no more insurance premiums, no more deductibles and no more out of pocket expenses – just your monthly health utility bill to cover all your healthcare needs. 

·       The structure of healthcare would shift to a system based on wellness and disease prevention, administered through an NP run clinic.  

·       The clinic would work closely with the public health department to determine the actual needs of the community, identify socioeconomic obstacles to health, and then create  unique infrastructure that addresses those needs.  

·       Job satisfaction for NPs would escalate since NPs would be performing the innovative health delivery work they were trained for in an integrative, collaborative environment where each discipline/professional is highly valued and respected.   

The Public Utility Model (PUM) is not Medicare For All. Medicare For All simply changes the payer, not the fundamental structure. Whereas the PUM addresses the structure by addressing data driven healthcare needs and cooperative goals for a community with transparency and accountability in reaching them. This is a significant philosophical shift from the current profit driven disease care models.  The PUM creates an infrastructure that identifies and addresses the social determinants of care which have a more profound impact on health than either access or genetics.