From JLF’s Health Care Policy Analyst Jordan Roberts:
“What specifics steps can Congress take to lower health care costs, incentivize care that improves patient health and outcomes of patients, and increase the ability for patients to access information about their care to make informed decisions?”
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, posed that question at the end of 2018.
In response, policy fellows, research scholars, and health policy experts from the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution released a report that detailed a set of policies with bipartisan support that could be adopted at the federal and state levels to reform the U.S. health care system.
While the appetite for health care reform is present on both sides of the aisle, the vision of health care reform differs drastically within caucuses of both major parties and even more so between the parties. The AEI-Brookings report offers a glimmer of hope that there can be some federal and state action that both parties can agree on to address some of the policies that contribute to the rising cost of care.
Jordan describes a few of the policies in the report here.