The message for states from the State Health Care Cost Containment Commission: don't wait on the federal government's efforts to add value to healthcare.
The commission recently released a report entitled "Cracking the Code on Health Care Costs," spearheaded by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and funded by Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report suggested state leaders should capitalize on their political power as healthcare purchasers and regulators to set quality and spending goals.
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Additional recommendations from the report include adopting annual per-resident spending goal increases for states as percentages of state economic growth, facilitating health system collaboration with antitrust powers and using the state as a platform to promote healthier lifestyles for state residents.
Miller Center Director and CEO and former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles told Kaiser Health News that without state action, the annual cost of medical care may increase more than 50 percent per person by 2021, from $9,000 to $14,000 dollars.
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