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Will American Businesses Ever Leave the Health Care World? (PDF)

13 pages. "Value (actual or perceived) versus cost (and availability) ... Organizational challenges in offering health care benefits ... The health care supply chain: a study in change ... Major constraints on eliminating employer-sponsored health care coverage ... Size matters (and so does labor content) ... Rapid cost growth ... Government policy changes: single-payer ... Miraculous improvement in the individual marketplace ... Changes in tax law and/or financial accounting."

Health Policy Outlook: Is Massachusetts a Model at Last?

Excerpt: Massachusetts has tried health-care reform before, without notable success, but this time may be different. Whatever the fate of the Bay State's new program, what features of it are unique to Massachusetts? Which aspects can be and ought to be copied by other states, and which might require or benefit from modification?

Hitting the Wall: When Health Care Costs Are No Longer Manageable (PDF)

15 pages. "The concurrent strains in both [employer-sponsored insurance] and government-run programs, which combined cover or subsidize the vast majority of Americans, could leave millions of Americans without any affordable health care options. This paper will examine some of these pressures, and look at independent estimates of when each of them will be reaching a crisis point. According to these analyses, each system will be facing its own crisis in a narrow window of time, specifically the years between 2025 and 2030."

Benefits of the Tax-Preferred Status of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance (PDF)

17 pages. "[T]he current tax treatment of health care benefits provides strong incentives to employers who purchase health care for their employees to focus on the overall health of their employees and to use their leverage to improve the quality and cost of the health care system. Furthermore, changes to the tax treatment of health care benefits may discourage employers from offering coverage to their employees.... [L]imiting or eliminating the current tax exclusion of employer-provided health care benefits could cost our system far more than any benefits it may provide."

How the Government as a Payer Shapes the Health Care Marketplace (PDF)

15 pages. "The federal government is the largest single payer of health care in the United States ... [The] various ways in which the U.S. government in its role as payer attempts to influence U.S. health care beg the question of what other players in the space will do in response -- and what this could possibly mean for the nation's health care system in the future.... The key question is whether the changes undertaken by these players will, together with government, enhance or detract from the widely proclaimed goal of better quality of health care at a more affordable cost."

Medical Network and Payment Reform Strategies to Increase Health Care Value (PDF)

17 pages. "To date, employers have relied on relatively blunt instruments for managing health care costs -- selecting health plans based on network discounts and provider access, and increasing consumer cost-sharing to mitigate cost trends.... Many large employers recognize a need to change the current dynamic of volume-based incentives to value-based contracting strategies that better reward quality care and efficiency in resource management. But employers no longer believe that the key differentiation is among health insurance plans; it's about the differentiation of their provider networks and the underlying provider contracting arrangements."

Waste in the Health Care World (PDF)

19 pages. "Pharmacy, which was determined to generate 4% wasteful spending, suffered from problems such as over-prescription and non-adherence to drug regimes. Inpatient, generating 6% wasteful spending, was beset by problems such as medical errors, preventable admissions, and hospital acquired infections. Outpatient, which at 9% generated the highest waste score of the top categories, faced the problems of missed prevention opportunities and defensive medicine."

Public Insurance Is Increasingly Crucial to American Families Even as Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Coverage Ends Its Steady Decline

"In 2012, the share of non-elderly Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance [ESI] did not decline for the first time in 12 years. After falling every year since 2000, for a total decline of 10.9 percentage points to 2011, coverage was essentially flat between 2011 and 2012, increasing slightly to 58.4 percent.... As many as 29 million more people under age 65 would have had ESI in 2012 if the ESI coverage rate had remained at its 2000 level.... On-the-job coverage for strongly attached workers (those who worked at least 20 hours per week for at least half the year) continued its march downward, from 55.4 percent in 2007 to 51.6 percent in 2012."

House HELP Subommittee Hearing: Reducing Health Care Costs for Working Americans and Their Families

Links to video, statement of Chairman Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and statements by witnesses [1] Mrs. Tracy Watts, Mercer; [2] Ms. Marcie Strouse, Capitol Benefits Group; [3] Ms. Sabrina Corlette, J.D., Georgetown University"s Health Policy Institute; and [4] Mr. Joel White, Council for Affordable Health Coverage (CAHC)."

The Prescription Drug Supply Chain 'Black Box': How It Works and Why You Should Care (PDF)

23 pages. "[This paper outlines] an approach specifically tailored to addressing the challenges inherent in managing the prescription drug supply chain ... [T]his new model disaggregates the traditional 'Pharmacy Benefit Manager' (PBM) supply chain. This allows for better alignment of incentives among the various stakeholders involved in the process."