Last year was an eventful one for the U.S. health care system, marked by the opening of the Affordable Care Act's federal and state health insurance marketplaces. While the rollout of this enormous effort has been rocky, growth in enrollment over the past several weeks suggests we are on the path to near-universal coverage. In 2013 we also saw some political consensus forming on ways to control health care spending by paying providers based on the value of the services they provide, developing new options for Medicare beneficiaries, and establishing spending targets.
We at The Commonwealth Fund offered our own analysis of these issues and more. The following were the five most-popular publications of 2013.
- Confronting Costs: Stabilizing U.S. Health Spending While Moving Toward a High Performance Health Care System, The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, January 2013.
- Health Care in the Two Americas: Findings from the Scorecard on State Health System Performance for Low-Income Populations, 2013,C. Schoen, D. C. Radley, P. Riley, J. A. Lippa, J. Berenson, C. Dermody, A. Shih, September 2013.
- Access, Affordability, and Insurance Complexity Are Often Worse in the United States Compared to 10 Other Countries, C. Schoen, R. Osborn, D. Squires, and M. M. Doty, November 2013.
- Insuring the Future: Current Trends in Health Coverage and the Effects of Implementing the Affordable Care Act, S. R. Collins, R. Robertson, T. Garber, and M. M. Doty, April 2013.
- Primary Care: Our First Line of Defense, June 2013.