Some of the nation’s top health care experts, several of whom helped write the 2010 health care law, released a strategy Wednesday to take the next step — curbing spending.
The proposals include state spending targets; competitive bidding for medical devices, laboratory tests and other Medicare services; and a dramatic move away from the traditional way doctors and hospitals are paid.
They were the consensus of a group of 23 mainly centrist and left-leaning economists, academics and former Obama administration officials, including Peter Orszag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget,and Ezekiel Emanuel, who served as health policy adviser to the OMB. Emanuel was the chief author of the report, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The group was convened by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, and met in January for a daylong session to discuss policy options for slowing health costs.
Among the group’s ideas:
– Creating independent panels made up of medical providers, employers, consumers in each state that would set spending targets, which would ultimately be tied to that state’s average growth in wages.
– Encouraging negotiations among public and private insurers along with hospitals, doctors and other medical providers, to set payment rates that would apply to all providers in a state.
– Extending competitive bidding in Medicare, which is now limited to some medical equipment, such as wheelchairs, to many medical devices, lab tests and imaging services.
– Moving rapidly to get Medicare and private insurers to move away from paying piecemeal for each test or procedure to a model that “bundles” payments that would cover a broad range of care.
The hope is the plan, which could be implemented in whole or in part, will get attention in Congress as it debates deficit reduction efforts later this year, said Topher Spiro, managing director of health policy at CAP. Some of the changes would require federal action.
Economist Paul Ginsburg of the Center for Studying Health System Change, who was not part of the group that drafted the paper, sees it as an outline of ways to expand upon the more limited cost containment efforts in the 2010 federal law.
Some of the ideas might find favor mainly in so-called blue states. But other elements, such as competitive bidding and making payment changes for both government programs and private insurers, could appeal to businesses and more conservative states, said Spiro.
The ideas garnered support from Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, according to a press release from CAP.
“These principles are a strong foundation that can set the U.S. health care system on a path of sustainable growth,” Sally Welborn, senior vice president of benefits at Walmart, said in a written statement.
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How about PREVENTION of chronic illnesses?
It could save trillions, and a lot of suffering, too.
Carolyn Kay
http://www.ManyYearsYoung.com
I stopped reading after I read the group of “experts” that came up with this. This group will only push their agenda.
Get the election over and see if there is a way to get all sides to the table for some unbiased and balanced cost control measures.
2 keys: 1. Response # 1 on prevention is right on and 2. Until consumers start shopping for health care like they shop for everything else (personal budget and cost in mind at all times) there will be no control of health costs. Transparency of costs for every visit / procedure at every physician’s office and facility is the only way to get us there. Example: If I can pay $500 for an MRI at an outpatient clinic vs. $2,100 for the same MRI at a hospital based facility, and I have to pay some or all of the costs or the difference in cost between the two…where do you think I would have the procedure performed? Right now I (the consumer) have no way to find out the cost that my insurance carrier reimburses all of the facilities.
Ron Swanson, it’s obvious that you stopped reading because you just put forth the same solution proposed by this panel of health policy and economics experts. Looks like you agree with their “agenda” – it is quite common sensical.
I’m sure Ron shops for a car based on the cost of its sheet metal, headlamps and stereo system.
Not.
Ron wants transparent PRICES of his treatments, cures, and ‘health care’, rather than the COSTS of the components of which those “things” are made. The difference is real, for reasons we haven’t space to unravel here in the comments section. The failure to understand the implications of that difference dooms Ron and most of his fellow “market triumphalist” sufferers to idle in the ER waiting room of health system transformation.
The devil of this difference is very much in the details of any full-blown ‘consumer-centric’ model, and dat ole debbil seems never to want the details sussed out.
When you’ve genuinely modeled how your imagined scheme would work, Ron, get back to us. Until then, keep these basically crypto-libertarian fantasies with you in your mom’s basement, where they belong.
“these principles are a strong foundation that can set the the U.S. health care system on a path of sustainable growth.” Comment by Sally Welborn of Walmart. The first thing I’m going to do after Obama is re-elected is ask the President to drop the ACA and promote a single payer system like Improved Medicare for All; the only way to control health care costs. What a stupid article this is; private insurance can’t work. These are experts then I must be very much their superior. Image asking a member of Walmart how foolish to print something like this.
Bernie
Single payer health care only way to cut health care costs