The Center for American Progress has been studying the inevitable rate of inflation of health care in the US and has come up with a proposal intended to deal with rising costs.
Healthcare costs, both private and public, are expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades as a result of medical inflation and an increasingly elderly population.
Republicans argue that premium support, in which Medicare beneficiaries would have a certain amount of money to shop for insurance, is necessary to make the program affordable in the long term.
In contrast, CAP's proposals aim to rein in U.S. healthcare spending overall, translating to savings in government health entitlements such as Medicare.
Under the group's 11-point plan, states would set specific healthcare spending targets, and private industry would negotiate payment rates to meet them.
The plan would also pull U.S. healthcare away from the dominant fee-for-service reimbursement model, which critics blame for encouraging unnecessary care.
Former Office and Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, who collaborated with CAP on the proposal, praised it as a means for increasing healthcare quality while reducing costs. ...The Hill
Among the recommendations:
Promote privately negotiated payment rates within global spending targets
Accelerate use of alternatives to fee-for-service payment
Use competitive bidding for all health care commodities
Require exchanges to offer tiered plans
Require all exchanges to be active purchasers
Simplify administrative systems ...Center for American Progress
There are plenty more. But let's pause at "simplify administrative systems." If there's anything many of us have had experience with, it's bloated administrative systems. Even our doctors complain about them regularly -- and yet seem to have little power to change them. It's within administrative systems that losses that overcharging and corruption are found -- along with too many administrators who benefit from the flaws and leakage within the system.
Simplify administrative systems
Payers and providers should electronically exchange eligibility, claims, and other administrative information. A taskforce of payers and providers should set binding compliance targets, monitor use rates, and have broad authority to implement additional measures to achieve systemwide savings of $30 billion a year. ...CAP
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