The Building Blocks of Health Reform: Achieving Universal Coverage and Health System Savings

The presidential election has focused public attention on the need for health system reform—to ensure health insurance for all, to make health care more accessible and responsive to patients, and to slow the growth in health care cost. This issue brief sets forth a framework for expanding health coverage that offers Americans a choice of a product modeled on Medicare to those under age 65, made available through a national insurance connector. Coupled with reforms to Medicare provider payment, expansion of preventive health care, and improved information, such a strategy has the potential to achieve near-universal coverage and improve quality and access, while generating health system savings of $1.6 trillion over 10 years.

Also see a summary of the Health Affairs article: Building Blocks for Reform: Achieving Universal Coverage with Private and Public Group Health Insurance