A sunny mood on a rainy day in Moscow…here are today’s stories…
State Health Policy Leaders Examine Reform Landscape
George Lauer – California Healthline
In the true spirit of free enterprise, a new health care funding mechanism taking shape in the U.S. got some time in the spotlight during the Atlanta conference. Social impact bonds are being touted as a way for private investors to put up money for government health programs with the hope of getting paid back when the programs bear fruit by reducing costs and improving public health.
South Carolina is exploring the possibilities.
“Who thinks farther out beyond the silos we’re always talking about?” asked Tony Keck, director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
“It’s the corporations. A social impact bond takes some of risk away from legislatures and states and puts it onto private investors who say, ‘We’re willing to take that risk but we want a payout that’s commensurate with that risk.'”
The idea is to get expensive health programs started with private investments that will be repaid once the programs are paying dividends with a less-expensive health care system and a healthier population.
How to measure all that is yet to be determined.
“You take these programs that need a lot of money up front but promise a long return and you have private investors put the money up,” Keck said.
“You can see when a bridge is built or a new road opens, but seeing progress or a completed process in health care is different. The key in social impact bonds is you need results and you need to be able to measure them,” Keck said.
Five Reasons To Prioritize Social Impact Investing
Carla Javits – The Huffington Post
What are the top five reasons that our country should make social impact investing a priority?
#1 More capital. First, it offers the possibility that a vital, new framework could channel vastly more capital toward solving thorny social problems at scale in the US and around the world.
#2 Business methods to achieve social objectives. The new approach blends capital market and business efficiencies with social sector prowess in understanding and meeting human needs.
#3 Social objectives embedded in business. It pushes investors and the business community to consider social objectives – full inclusion in the economy, a clean environment – as fully embedded into their core objectives and responsibilities, and a calculated element of their return on investment. This sets us on a path toward the full integration of social impact into the core of how business is done in the US.
#4 Results. It presses philanthropy, government and the social sector to make efficient, effective solutions that deliver results at scale, an essential way to express humanitarian values.
#5 Leverage. It suggests a powerful new way that philanthropists and foundations can deploy scarce grant capital in the context of preset agreements with government that lead to better public sector decision-making about where to deploy much larger tranches of funding over time.