Commonwealth Fund Report Explores Health Spending Policy Options
The Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System has issued a report examining 15 federal policy options "that have the potential to lower health spending relative to projected trends." According to the report, entitled “Bending the Curve: Options for Achieving Savings and Improving Value in U.S. Health Spending,” U.S. health spending is projected to increase from 16 percent of GDP in 2006 to 20 percent in 2016-from $2 trillion to $4 trillion. The policy options the report explores include: "produce and use better information for health care decision-making, promote health and enhance disease prevention, align financial incentives with quality and efficiency, and correct price signals in health care markets."
The report outlines a “range of options [that] illustrates strategic approaches that could, in combination, ease cost pressures and create a path toward a higher performing, high-value health system. The goal of the analysis is to spark discussion and development of constructive national policies that could reduce costs and enable a more efficient, effective, and equitable health system.” And, in conclusion, the report predicts that health care costs “will continue to consume a greater and greater share of our nation's economic resources, without yielding proportional gains to society, if we fail to act.”
Click title to view the Executive Summary, and/or connect to full report and related documents: Bending the Curve: Options for Achieving Savings and Improving Value in U.S. Health Spending.
