New Health Cost Containment Commission

A high-powered panel of a dozen former policymakers and health care experts plan to produce a report by October detailing how states can cut the increase in health care spending so that it mirrors overall economic growth.

The State Health Care Cost Containment Commission will be headed by University of Virginia professor Ray Scheppach, the former long-serving executive director of the National Governors Association. Its co-chairmen are former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt and former Colorado Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. The commission includes health industry executives, including Geisinger Health System President and CEO Glenn Steele, Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO George Halvorson, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts President and CEO Andrew Dreyfus and UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President Simon Stevens. Also on the panel are former policymakers and policy experts, such as Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Finance former executive director Joan Henneberry and Medicare trustee Robert D. Reischauer.

Some of the critical questions that will be addressed by the Commission include the following:

• How can governors and legislatures create a permanent strategic planning group of stakeholders to both develop a state consensus and provide leadership on cost control strategies?
• What health care data needs to be collected to monitor progress toward the goal of making health care spending sustainable over time?
• What enforcement mechanisms are available to states to ensure that the goal is met?
• How does a state create transparency on health care prices and quality to allow consumers to make more cost effective decisions?
• How can states encourage the integration of care through the use of accountable care organizations and medical homes?
• What are the most efficient payment reforms that could be implemented and how should the state encourage their use?
• What incentives can be built into the state insurance exchanges that will encourage consumers to choose the most cost-effective care?
• How does a state expand the scope of practice for physician assistants, advanced practice nurses and other non-physician providers?
• How does a state reform medical malpractice and create safe harbor reporting?
• What can the federal government do to assist states in controlling health care costs?

Kaiser Permanente and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are funding the project.