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Health Care Cost Control Requires More Monitoring and Standardized Data

Health Affairs Council of Experts Release Recommendations on Spending and Value

February 6, 2023

By:

Hoag Levins

Print:

Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, William Frist, University of Pennsylvania economist Mark Pauly, and Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics Executive Director Rachel M. Werner discuss the recommendations in the new Health Affairs Council on Health Care Spending report.

A 22-member council of top health care economics and delivery experts convened by Health Affairs has issued a 54-page white paper outlining a sweeping set of recommendations for more effective control of U.S. health care costs. The title is “A Road Map for Action: Recommendations of The Health Affairs Council on Health Care Spending and Value.”

Launched in 2019, the Health Affairs Council on Health Care Spending and Value spent nearly four years analyzing the economics of U.S. health care. Its recommendations include federal and state monitoring measures designed to address the lack of competition in many markets across the country, and centralization of certain data collection systems, standardization of the current babel of quality measure metrics across health systems, payers and government agencies, and a rethinking of the value-based payment models that have not yet resulted in significant saving for payers, provider, or patients.

In the video above, University of Pennsylvania Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics Executive Director Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD, interviews Council Co-chair Bill Frist, MD, and member Mark Pauly, PhD, about the most important aspects of the findings. Frist is a former U.S. Senator who was Senate majority leader heavily involved in health care legislation. Pauly is a nationally renowned health economist from The Wharton School and a former Executive Director of LDI.