On Wisconsin Healthcare: Let’s stop pointing fingers and fix our healthcare problem together
By Curt Kubiak, President & CEO
Recently, I have asked my colleagues in the healthcare delivery sector to think about the legacy we, as a society, are leaving for our children and grandchildren when it comes to healthcare. Personally, I think about my sons, Aaron, Evan, and Nolan. And I think about their children and the healthcare system they’ll inherit.
We can all agree healthcare is too expensive everywhere in this country. Employers, providers, patients, and advisors all feel the strain of a healthcare system that is unsustainable. We are paying more yet receiving less value. That equation doesn’t work for any of us, and the trajectory is even worse for the next generation.
For decades, healthcare costs have risen faster than wages or business growth. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare inflation has risen faster than general inflation since 1952. This means that in the 1950s, one out of every twenty dollars spent in the U.S. went toward healthcare. Today, it is nearly one out of every five dollars.
It is well documented and more often discussed that the U.S. spends far more per person on healthcare than other wealthy nations, and healthcare accounts for a significantly larger share of the U.S. economy compared to its peers.
It’s time to work together to bend that trend together. With the key word in this phrase being “together” as we aim to help one another.
In healthcare, it’s easy to point fingers, arguing that one part of the system is the problem or that things would improve if another part changed its perspective. After working in the healthcare space for many years, I can tell you finger pointing hasn’t got us very far.
Real change will only happen when we first seek to understand, when we come together and listen, identify the shortcomings in the existing model, and create solutions together that solve each of our concerns. Collaboration opens doors to new perspectives and innovative solutions, and it’s through these partnerships that real action becomes possible.
The massive complexity of the current healthcare model and its shortcomings make the only relevant question quite simple: who is going to be bold enough to make dramatic changes, not just incremental improvements, to the way healthcare works in this country? We need leaders to join us and be catalysts for change.
These leaders, whether an employer, doctor or other practitioner, administrator, advisor, or patient, won’t have all the answers, but we need to be willing to work together.
In the past few years, I’ve seen some positive momentum, as those in the healthcare space are:
- Focusing on value, not just price
- Expanding access to providers who deliver better outcomes at a lower cost
- Giving employers the data and insights they need to make informed decisions
- Aligning incentives so that doing the right thing, whether for the patient or for the business, is also financially sustainable for providers
These are important shifts that can drive down the cost of healthcare without sacrificing quality. It’s a good start. But now is the time to accelerate our shared efforts.
As we have all witnessed, without action, prices will continue to increase year over year.
According to Mercer, employers are already expecting total health benefit costs per employee to rise by an average of 6.5% in 2026, the highest rate since 2010. Unfortunately, many of us have become numb to these realities.
We cannot in good conscience leave this problem for another generation to fix what we’ve broken. We must be bold. We must collaborate. We must innovate. And together, we must make healthcare work better for employers, employees, providers, and our communities.
Right now, the legacy we are handing the next generation is a set of problems they didn’t create, rising medical costs, uneven access to care, and a system that prioritizes volume over value. That isn’t acceptable.
We can fix this together.
Let’s amplify ideas and solutions that are working, work to connect people on different ends of the system, and create an environment where experimentation is encouraged and success is shared.
Together, we can build a healthcare system that delivers real value; not just for us, but for generations to come.
Curt Kubiak is the President and CEO of The Alliance, a non-for-profit cooperative that helps employers save money on their healthcare spend. After an early career in the manufacturing sector, Kubiak has spent nearly two decades as an executive in the healthcare industry in Wisconsin. You can contact him at OnWisconsinHealthcare@the-alliance.org.
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