Cost
How are we to ensure that health care reform is fiscally sustainable for both the public and private sectors? By reducing the rate of increase in future health care costs for American families, individuals, businesses and governments.
With an estimated $800 billion being wasted annually within the U.S. health system on unnecessary services, inefficient delivery, excessive administrative costs, too high prices, missed prevention opportunities, fraud and abuse, the Coalition recommendations for cost-containment and quality improvement include:
- Workforce Reforms
- Acceleration of Cost Containment Reforms
- Codification of Voluntary Effort Commitments
- Innovations and Incentives
- Health Innovation Zones
- Health Information Technology and Administrative Simplification
- Aggressive Patient-Centered Delivery and Payment Reforms
- Bundled Payments
- Accountable Care Organizations
- Virtual Integration
- Medical Homes
- Stronger Comparative Effectiveness Programs
- Prevention and Wellness
- Drug and Device Cost Containment
- Pharmaceutical Pricing
- Generic Biologics
- Durable Equipment Pricing
- Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement
- Medical Liability Reforms and Cost Containment
- Scoreable Mechanisms and
- Governance Options.
The Coalition’s recommendations -- if implemented -- could reap well over $1 trillion in cost savings in the next decade. There is a commitment to the necessary shared sacrifice and shared responsibility for achieving this goal among the Coalition’s diverse membership. Now we need all the other major industry stakeholders who without cost containment changes stand to reap windfall profits -- many of whom like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America will be gaining tens of millions of new customers and patients -- to come back to the table again in order to contribute their fair share to enact secure and sustainable health system reform.
From Rx for Reform
On the National Journal’s expert health care blog, Marilyn Werber Serafini opened discussion on the recent report issued by Medicare actuary Richard Foster, which stated that health care spending over the next decade could increase by up to 1 percent, due to new insurance coverage for 34 million people. In response to Serafini’s question regarding the meaning of this report for the fate of health reform,
NCHC Action Fund President and CEO, Ralph G. Neas, calls for an insurance policy for health care reform.
Noting that last spring, leaders of the health care industry, including representatives from PhARMA, America's Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association and American Hospital Association, met with President Obama and pledged to him and the American people that they would decrease the annual rate of cost increases by 1.5 percentage points to save $2 trillion or more over the next decade. Neas said the commitment that industry leaders made to the President and the American public "should be more than a photo op, press statement and promise." Citing Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus' piece about legislative cost containment efforts and needing a fail-safe mechanism to ensure that the rate of health care inflation is slowed, Neas urged that industry pledges to the President and the American people to control the growth of national health expenditures be codified and made enforceable as part of health reform.
The National Coalition on Health Care's recommendations, based upon the consensus view of 85 member organizations, to make the system less complex, reduce overly high prices, and create a truly competitive health care marketplace. The goal of the paper is to augment the NCHC Principles and Specifications with a more detailed and selective set of policy recommendations on cost containment and quality improvement.
How much merit is there to 11th-hour insurance industry claims that the health reform bill scheduled for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week would raise insurance premiums? And how big a problem is it that the industry, which had generally been cooperative in the reform effort, is now lashing out? -- Marilyn Werber Serafini, NationalJournal.com
The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have issued a preliminary analysis of the Senate Finance Committee chairman's mark for the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009. They note it would reduce the federal budget deficits by $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period. What's your take?
From Facts & Research
While insurance market reforms required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) get top billing, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that the nation’s network of Community Health Centers (CHC) will be a critical element in fulfilling reform’s promise. Today more than 8,000 CHC’s are the source of primary health services for over 20 million people and are expected to reduce reliance on emergency rooms and providers that do not welcome Medicaid patients. Congress authorized more than $11 billion in funding to support 15,000 new centers expected to provide services for over 20 million new people starting in 2011.
Health Reform GPS, a joint project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the George Washington University Department of Health Policy, has posted an overview of the Medicare Prescription Drug Discount and Rebate Program, as well as a description of the aid made available to low-income Medicare beneficiaries by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The overview provides some background on the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit, the changes that were made by ACA, and the plan for implementing these reform benefits.
Click here to read the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit overview.
Click here to read an LA Times article regarding when seniors may expect to receive rebate checks as part of the reform benefit.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AARA) provided more than two billion dollars to community health centers for improvement in capital, expansion of personnel and adopting a Health Information Technology (HIT) system. While it has achieved the goal of directing temporary resources into community health centers and HIT, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has helped ensure these resources maintain required support enabling them to serve at-risk communities.
To access a report by GWU School of Public Health detailing the Early Effects of ARRA Funding , Click here
The average cost of employer-based family health insurance coverage more than doubled over the past decade, while salary growth remained stagnant.
National Coalition on Health Care
1120 G Street, NW Suite 810, Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 202.638.7151 Fax: 202.638.7166
