June 21, 2017 - A national organization led by a former South Jersey congressman, and comprised of large corporations seeking to overhaul how health care is delivered to their employees, has its sights set on expanding into the Philadelphia market.

Rob Andrews, CEO of the 2-year-old Health Transformation Alliance, outlined the organization’s plans at the annual conference of the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health. “Philadelphia is very much on our radar screen,” said Andrews, a Camden, N.J. native who represented New Jersey’s first congressional district from 1990 to 2014. “I live 20 minutes from here. We are coming to Philadelphia.”

When is another matter.

Andrews — who was working as an attorney advising the organization before becoming its CEO — said the alliance has already began work in its first three markets: Chicago, Phoenix and Dallas/Fort Worth. Philadelphia, he said, could be added as early as the start of 2019 or as late as 2021. The Health Transformation Alliance’s members are 40 large employers that provide health benefits to 6.5 million people and spend $25 billion annually on health care. Local alliance members include Lincoln Financial and DuPont.

...Neil Goldfarb, president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health, said what the alliance is planning complements what the coalition is doing in this region — namely collaborating with health plans, health care providers, and other system stakeholders to improve the value of health benefit spending. “We’re still exploring how we can work together,” Goldfarb said. “We expect we will work with them to help the alliance identify who the high-quality, low-cost providers are.”

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