Health execs: If I could change one thing about the industry

"I would get a social mandate for universal coverage from the American people."

We are the richest country in the world but we do a bad job taking care of the poorest people. Also, lack of a social mandate leads to fewer national standards for managing the financial aspects of healthcare.

- Perry Cohen, chief executive officer, The Pharmacy Group

"I would improve the interoperability and exchange of data."

That way, all participants in the healthcare system would be aligned around delivering appropriate and effective services to improve the health of patients.

- Joel Brill, MD, medical director for FAIR Health, Inc.

"I would create an IT infrastructure similar to the banking industry."

The infrastructure would enable much more consistent and sophisticated means of tracking and relaying individual patient healthcare data and records in a highly-secure and highly reliable fashion. Such an infrastructure would go a long way toward helping to correct some of the most pressing challenges facing our industry today, from both a quality and financial perspective.

- David Calabrese, vice president and chief pharmacy officer, Catamaran

"I would get the greed out of the system."

We have the most expensive system in the world yet deliver some of the worst outcomes. Where is this money going? Not in making a better system of care.

- Don Hall, principal of DeltaSigma, LLC

"I would have the states that refused the Medicaid expansion take it up."

The greatest advancement in healthcare quality in the past five years has been the reduction of the rate of the uninsured from 15.7% in 2010 to 9.2% today. For people of working age-from 18 to 64-the uninsured rate has been cut nearly in half, from 22.3% to 13%. We could drive that rate down further if more states were to expand Medicaid.

- Margaret Murray, chief executive officer, Association for Community Affiliated Plans

"I would dispel the myth that all health insurance is alike and that ours is an industry that is slow to change."

Now, more than ever, we need to think differently about how to address the big, complex healthcare challenges our country faces. At Independence Blue Cross, we’re are seeking and implementing innovations that will holistically revolutionize healthcare.  We’re doing that through Human-Centered Innovation-putting our member at the center of everything we do, and focusing on making the healthcare experience more convenient, less expensive, and more effective.  Our objective? To disrupt the status quo, to do more, do it differently, and do it better.

- Daniel J. Hilferty, president and chief executive officer, Independence Blue Cross