"[D]eductibles might be a good way to get healthy people to pay attention to prices, but the U.S. health spending crisis is not driven by profligate healthy people. It is driven by the 18 percent of us, mainly with chronic conditions, who spend 80 percent of our health dollars. But patients with chronic conditions routinely blow through their deductibles. So the increased reliance on first dollar deductibles seems woefully misplaced. CMS can and should allow insurers to creatively redesign cost sharing so as to increase the price sensitivity of chronically ill patients, without increasing overall financial risk."

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