Janet Reno spoke today at the National Conference of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. As a GLMA Board Member, I had the opportunity to chat with her briefly after her presentation.

Ms. Reno spoke about how important it is for all people to have access to healthcare. If minorities are protected from discrimination in healthcare but do not have the financial ability to access care, then the rights are only paper and not real. She gave many examples of how lack of health coverage harms our population. And she talked about the costs that could be avoided by having universal coverage. Ms. Reno also stressed the importance of helping the elderly stay in their homes and avoid nursing home care.

After the talk, I thanked Ms. Reno for all the work she did to bring attention to healthcare fraud. Janet said that it is important not only to bring attention to fraud but to distinguish it from honest mistakes. I agreed that the distinction is very important and that too often the honest mistakes distract from the work of finding real fraud.

I also told Janet Reno about the work I’m doing with FourThought Group to help the federal government and states reform the business of Medicaid. I told her about the MITA initiative’s emphasis on improving business processes and designing the systems to support the new processes. She is very interested and hopes to hear more about what we’re doing.