NCHC Urges Congress to Curb System-Wide Health Costs the Right Way Following Supercommittee Collapse

The Supercommittee may have failed, yet we have no choice but to see that failure as an opportunity for Congress as a whole to start facing up to our nation’s challenges, including the need to tame health costs the right way.

Over the next year, stakeholders, key Congressional Committees and individual Members of Congress have a chance to develop solutions driven by evidence and smart policy, not partisan budget politics. Crafting health policy solutions that achieve savings by making our health care system more effective, rather than shifting costs onto the private sector, states, providers and families, is the right place to start.

An intellectual foundation for such an effort already exists. While the Supercommittee wrangled, a consensus emerged among health care experts on three of the most important steps America can take to tame costs system-wide. The delivery of care can be transformed by helping doctors, nurses and other providers better coordinate patient care – not just in a few pilot communities, but across the country. Given the explosion of costs related to chronic disease, this kind of care coordination, combined with strong, evidence-informed prevention programs, could reap substantial system-wide savings. Consumers and patients can be empowered to get more involved in maintaining their own health, selecting the best providers and choosing the care that is right for them. Our broken fee-for-service provider payment system can be replaced with a new approach that rewards providers for working together to deliver the best care to each and every patient.

Escalating health care bills will continue to squeeze family budgets, constrain job creation, and explode our nation’s debt until Congress decides to act. The Supercommittee may have failed, but the responsibility of Congress as a whole to use the next weeks and months to address this urgent national problem remains.
 

Document: 

11.22.11 NCHC Urges Congress to Curb System-Wide Health Costs the Right Way Following Supercommittee Collapse – Statement of the National Coalition on Health Care and NCHC Action Fund.pdf