The Future of Health Care
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The Bipartisan Policy Center is intensifying its efforts to serve as a resource to policymakers and to develop effective and politically viable solutions to our nation’s health care challenges. BPC has convened a bipartisan group of leading national health policy experts to identify a path forward for a consensus approach to improving health care in the United States.
This effort is co-chaired by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bill Frist; BPC senior advisor and former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt; and senior fellow, Project Hope and former administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration Gail Wilensky. They are collaborating with BPC’s team of health policy experts which includes: Sheila Burke, BPC fellow and strategic advisor, Baker Donelson; Jim Capretta, resident fellow, Milton Friedman chair, American Enterprise Institute; Chris Jennings, BPC fellow and founder and president, Jennings Policy Strategies; Cindy Mann, partner, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and former director of the Center for Medicaid; and Avik Roy, BPC senior advisor and co-founder and president, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity; and the late Alice Rivlin, former senior fellow, Center for Health Policy, The Brookings Institution, and former director of the Office of Management and Budget
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The bipartisan group of experts is traveling across the country, convening leaders in the health care sector, engaging public dialogue through private and public educational events, and serving as a resource to policymakers and business leaders as they wrestle with health care reforms impacting their activities and the people they serve.
BPC’s work will build upon a series of common themes that have animated both parties’ health care proposals, such as:
- Policies that promote stable private insurance markets and include pre-existing condition protections
- Value-based benefit designs that incentivize delivery of medically appropriate care
- Reforms that increase the efficiency of service delivery through appropriate combinations of both public and private incentives while improving the nation’s long-term fiscal position
- Approaches to affordability that do not over-subsidize higher-income Americans or under-subsidize lower-income Americans
- Medicaid policies that expand administrative flexibility without creating financial risk for states, the federal government, or the beneficiaries of the program
BPC is hosting a public education series designed to help policymakers gain a common understanding of the underlying challenges in health care and considerations for reform. Past and future events include:
- Federal Budget and State Choices, February 3, 2017
- Stabilizing the Individual Insurance Market, May 31, 2017
- Balancing Coverage and Cost In Medicaid, June 29, 2017
- Can Increased State Flexibility Balance Innovation, Cost, and Coverage? July 13, 2017
BPC will also host a series of roundtable discussions outside of Washington in order to gain an understanding of the needs of those that deliver, pay for, and access health care. Roundtables will be held across the country with state leaders, health system and health insurers CEOs with a focus on health care delivery and payment reform and the role of plans and providers in their communities.
This effort builds on BPC’s robust heath care work that began in 2007 under the leadership of its founders, former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell.
Learn about our Health Systems Executive Council
Statement of Common Understanding
The Future of Health Care leaders have developed a Statement of Common Understanding on Health Care Reform. Republicans and Democrats agree that reforms are needed to improve upon today’s health care system and make coverage more sustainable and affordable. Despite the acrimony of recent debates, we believe there are common elements in the approaches of both parties from which to develop a politically viable and policy sound compromise plan. The best bipartisan solutions to our health care challenges will improve on what the private and public sectors do today. To learn more, view the Statement here.
National Survey on Health Care Reform
A Morning Consult survey released by BPC shows that Americans across the political spectrum believe that individuals and families pay too much for health care in the United States. Yet there is little support for either a fully government, or fully market-based system, once they consider the necessary trade-offs of increased taxes, limiting choice, or reducing benefits for the elderly, infirmed, or low-income. Ultimately, although there was not a significant majority on any approach, the approach that garnered the most support was building on our current system of health care. The survey also revealed that Democrats, Republicans and Independents support bipartisan efforts and compromises to reform our nation’s health care system.
The national survey, conducted by Morning Consult between July 2 and July 6, 2018, polled a national sample of more than 2,000 Americans ages 18 and over and looked at attitudes about health care cost and coverage, including single-payer and fully private approaches to health reform. Find out more information on the survey here.
Bipartisan Policies and Recommendations
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Future of Health Care expert panel is calling for a two-stage approach to health care reform that would first stabilize the individual insurance market, and then work expeditiously to address the more fundamental structural challenges in America’s current health care system. These recommendations come after a six-month policy review with state health officials, policy experts, actuaries, consumer advocates, and health system and insurance industry leaders. Read the full list of recommendations here.
Health Affairs Blog Series
This five-part BPC and Health Affairs Blog series examines current issues and care models in the delivery system reform effort. Each post is jointly authored by Democratic and Republican health policy leaders that work on BPC’s Future of Health Care Initiative.
Improving and reforming our health care delivery system is not a partisan issue. The need to improve health care delivery models, as a means for ensuring better patient outcomes and a more efficient health care system, enjoys broader consensus than elements surrounding health insurance coverage and financing. It is important for Congress, the Trump administration, and the health care industry to continue bipartisan efforts to shift our health care delivery system and provider payment models toward value-based care.
Press Releases
Affordable Care Act Advocates and Critics Agree on Health Care Recommendations
August 2017
BPC Health Policy Experts Urge Congress to Extend CSR Subsidies by Mid-August
July 2017
It’s Time to Set Aside Party Politics and Find Common Ground
June 2017
BPC Announces New Health System Executive Council to Advise on Health Policy
June 2017
BPC’s Next Steps for Improving Health Care in America
May 2017
BPC Health Policy Experts Call for Extension of Cost-Sharing Reduction Subsidies
April 2017
Other Resources
Bipartisan Rx for America’s Health Care
February, 2020
Podcast: The Facts About Medicaid
Stabilizing the Individual Insurance Market: What Happened and What Next?
March 2018
Podcast: The Facts About Medicaid
September 2017
Future of Health Care: Bipartisan Policies and Recommendations
August 2017
Improving Care of High-Need, High-Cost Medicare Patients
April 2017
Preserving CHIP and Other Safety-Net Programs
March 2017
Future of Health Care: Federal Budgets and State Choices
February 2017
Challenges and Opportunities in Caring for High-Need, High-Cost Patients: Preliminary Findings and Recommendations
February 2017
Initial Recommendations to Improve the Financing of Long-Term Care
February 2016 (Final Report July 2017)
Improving Care for Patients Dually Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid
September 2016
The Role and Future of the Children’s Health Insurance Program
March 2015
Improving and Expanding Health Insurance Coverage through State Flexibility
December 2015
America’s Long-Term Care Crisis: Challenges in Financing and Delivery
April 2014
Transitioning from Volume to Value: Accelerating the Shift to Alternative Payment Models 5-part series
August 2014 – July 2015
A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-Wide Cost Containment
April 2013
What Is Driving U.S. Health Care Spending? America’s Unsustainable Health Care Cost Growth
September 2012
Health Insurance Design Choices: Issues and Options for Change
December 2008
Crossing Our Lines
June 2009
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