PBGH Op-Ed on Cost Containment

NBCH member coalition, Pacific Business Group on Health, has published an op-ed in Politico on the subject of the role of employers in cost containment. The piece includes some specific proposals. Recognizing that action on broad Medicare reform is unlikely this year, PBGH is focusing on the specific issues that Congress seems to be interested in: 1) physician payment reform (including SGR replacement), 2) price transparency, and 3) quality measures. Co-authors David Lansky and Sally Welborn call on Congress to tackle the cost issue head-on by making both public and private-sector payment for care dependent on delivering the high-quality care every hardworking American deserves. They call on employers to work with federal payers to align incentives in all sectors of health care, including for both consumers and providers.

Partnership for Sustainable Health Care Report

Five veteran health care leaders representing insurers, hospitals, employers, and consumers have published a report outlining an ambitious set of recommendations aimed at slowing rising costs, focused mainly on changing the way America pays for health care. The new group includes NBCH member coalition Pacific Business Group on Health, America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade lobby for the insurance industry, hospital firm Ascension Health, the National Coalition on Health Care, a nonprofit research group, and Families USA, a consumer advocacy group.

Many of the ideas draw on existing efforts, such as accelerating Medicare’s efforts to pay for quality rather than just quantity of care. Working together as the Partnership for Sustainable Health Care, they also recommend greater incentives to promote quality, such as reimbursing providers more for treatments shown to be most effective — and reimbursing them less for those with more uncertain benefits. The distinguishing feature of this group and its recommendations are that they are aimed at true system-wide changes, not just federal or private sector solutions.

California's Health Benefit Exchange: The Future Envisioned

PBGH Director Emma Hoo shared the purchaser perspective on what is needed in the health insurance exchange in a California Health Care Foundation series: California's Health Benefit Exchange: The Future Envisioned. Read more...