Health Care Reform – The President’s Plan Is a Step in the Right Direction

Health care reform is urgently needed. Consumers and insurers are increasingly losing faith in the old quality agenda, which is unaffordable and dysfunctional in many areas. This is a great moment to look for new answers that can improve health, lessen human suffering, create stronger communities, and make our economy more resilient in good times and bad, and especially during public health crises.

A good place to start is by reducing the perverse incentives in the current fee-for-service payment system. It rewards doctors and hospitals for activities that increase revenues, like delivering more services or prescribing more medicines, but not for the activities that improve patient outcomes at lower cost, such as encouraging healthy behaviors such as diet and exercise, or following up on medications to reduce re-admissions.

Another important step is expanding access to affordable health insurance by promoting the use of tax-preferred, high-deductible health savings accounts (HSAs). Increasing the contribution limits and expanding the types of products that can be purchased with HSA contributions is a way to help people afford coverage they need.

The ACA also took steps to right-size the prior authorization process imposed on medical services and procedures by Medicare Advantage and government-regulated plans, thus reducing patient delays in accessing care and cutting down on redundant tests and procedures that increase costs. The President’s plan closes the gap in Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage that leaves 3.4 million seniors, many of them chronically ill, to pay for their medications on their own.