The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) https://bipartisanpolicy.org developed a comprehensive package of recommendations submitted by ten of the nation’s leading ideologically diverse health policy experts. Their thoughts and ideas are included in the new BPC report “Bipartisan Rx for America’s Health Care”.
By bringing together leading and yet politically diverse health care experts to effectively work together, BPC demonstrated that it is possible to break the health care reform stalemate and create reforms both parties can embrace. The thinking of former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bill Frist MD, calls for putting politics aside and putting the health of people first.
Key recommendations in the report include:
- Targeting anti-competitive behavior and excessive billing practices by some hospitals
- Lowering prescription drug costs by eliminating barriers to competition
- Reducing out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries with high drug expenses
- Lowering premiums for more of the middle class and stabilize the insurance market,
- Reducing consumer costs with improved Health Savings Accounts and price transparency
- Ending expensive surprise medical billing
Thoughts and ideas were presented from the Senators and BPC Co-Founders Former Senators Tom Daschle and Bill Frist MD, at a panel discussion held February 5, 2020. The discussion centered on BPC’s “Future of Health Care” initiative.
Panelists also included Andy Slavitt, Former Acting Administration for CMS, Jim Capretta, Resident Fellow, Milton Friedman Chair, American Enterprise Institute, Chris Jennings, Founder and President, Jennings Policy Strategies, Cindy Mann, Partner, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLC, Former Director for the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, and Avik Roy, President and Co-Founder, The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. The moderator for the panel was Sheila Burke, Strategic Advisor at Baker Donelson.
The panel discussed BPCs calls to tackle rising healthcare costs, expanding access to insurance, improving the quality of care, finding appropriate actions to take when dealing with issues when hospitals consolidate, and examining ways to enable small hospitals in rural communities to operate successfully.
Other issues discussed were how to deal with automatic enrollment of insurance since 30 million are not enrolled but two-thirds are eligible for coverage, the need to provide more information to help seniors going into Medicare in terms of choices, dealing with Medicaid issues since the there is no alternative to giving people health insurance since Medicaid is our only safety net program.
Go to https://bipartisanpolicy.org//report/bipartisan-rx to view the “Bipartisan Rx for America’s Health Care” report with ideas for developing a practical path to reform.