Fork in the road: alternative paths to a high performance U.S. health system Fork in the road: alternative paths to a high performance U.S. health system

Collection: Health Policy and Services Research Contributor(s): Schoen, Cathy Davis, Karen. Guterman, Stuart. Stremikis, Kristof. Commonwealth Fund. Publication: New York, NY : Commonwealth Fund, [2009] Language(s): English Format: Text Subject(s): Health Care Reform -- economics Health Care Reform -- legislation & jurisprudence National Health Insurance, United States -- economics National Health Insurance, United States -- legislation & jurisprudence Quality Assurance, Health Care -- organization & administration United States Genre(s): Technical Report Abstract: A controversial part of the health reform debate is whether a new public insurance plan choice should be offered to the under-65 population. This report analyzes alternative paths to reform and presents estimates of impacts on health spending. The approaches include: 1) a public health plan paying providers at Medicare rates, offered alongside private plans in a national health insurance exchange; 2) a public plan paying providers at rates set midway between Medicare and private plan rates, offered alongside private plans in an insurance exchange; and 3) no public plan, with only private plans offered to employers and individuals through an insurance exchange. All three approaches, if combined with Medicare payment and system reform, would produce substantial savings over time, but option 1 would yield the most--$3.0 trillion in cumulative health system savings over 2010 to 2020, compared with $2.0 trillion (option 2) and $1.2 trillion (option 3). Copyright: Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information) Illustrations: Illustrations NLM Unique ID: 101529525 (See catalog record) Permanent Link: http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101529525