Democratic and Republican governors know that rising health care costs are increasingly restricting spending on other state priorities. Paul Howard, Director of Health Policy at the Manhattan Institute, outlines five strategies that innovative governors can use to help transform state health care markets: 1. Incorporate reference pricing for common procedures and tests into state benefit designs, 2. Ban anti-tiering provisions, 3. Drive price transparency by setting up an all-payer claims database, 4. Expand access to direct primary care, and 5. Repeal regulations that hamstring competition, such as certificate of need laws and prohibitions on the corporate practice of medicine.
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Even progressives are turning against Obamacare as health care costs and premiums skyrocket.
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, said Wednesday there was strong support for a single-payer system on the Democratic platform committee, and one reason is that progressives blame the Affordable Care Act for rising costs.
“In a world in which people are facing rising costs and they kind of hear the ACA is over here, they’re blaming the ACA for their rising costs,” Ms. Tanden said during a panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention.
“Even progressives who fought for the ACA five years ago are really questioning the affordability issue, and it’s making them move in really dramatic ways,” she said. “Part of this lack of support of the ACA is from the left, not just the right.”
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Healthcare policy got remarkably little discussion during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, despite repeated nods to the issue from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders. Here’s why.
No one wanted to talk about the costs, regulations, and other tough tradeoffs that would be involved in further expanding insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, improving affordability for consumers, curbing medical spending growth, and reducing prescription drug costs.
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