Pay for Performance
Our healthcare system is currently designed to pay healthcare providers based on the services they perform or the quantity of services delivered. Without any controls for quality or results, healthcare costs continue to spiral upward. We believe the healthcare system should have quality controls in place that hold healthcare providers accountable for the outcome of care. In addition, providers should be rewarded for delivering high-quality, coordinated care.

Coverage for Pre-existing Conditions
We support guaranteed issue in the individual market — that is, covering individuals regardless of health status or pre-existing conditions. Guaranteed issue with an individual mandate and federal subsidies will help to make insurance work as it should — spreading the risk across a broad population.

Individual Responsibility
Healthcare reform that requires all individuals to have coverage is a sensible solution for slowing the growth in the cost shifting that occurs from uninsured or government patients to the privately insured. By requiring that all individuals have healthcare coverage, we can broaden the risk among all subscribers and make premiums more affordable as well.

Government Subsidies and the Expansion of Medicaid
We support the expansion of Medicaid and government subsidies to help provide healthcare coverage for all Americans. Government subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid will give more individuals access to care and make healthcare more affordable.

Legal Reform
We believe it’s important to have meaningful tort reform that encourages doctors to prescribe appropriate treatment or care and not practice “defensive medicine.” Today, the fear of lawsuits and malpractice forces many doctors to practice defensive medicine, which can include over-prescribing or ordering additional tests and procedures that could be unnecessary. Cutting back on the practice of defensive medicine could save billions of dollars a year.

Support Patient-centered Medical Home Model
Patient-centered Medical Home Models — where care is led by a personal physician who provides continuous and coordinated care throughout a patient’s lifetime — is key to healthcare reform. For the increasing number of Americans with chronic illnesses, Patient-centered Medical Home Models offer a cost-effective means of managing healthcare costs while providing high-quality care. To be successful, this model will require an investment in primary care doctors through increased reimbursements, scholarships and primary care education.

Provide Transparency for Consumers and Providers
We believe it’s important to make sure consumers and providers have the information and tools to make informed decisions about healthcare quality and costs. We must make quality and cost information transparent and give consumers and providers access to health information technology — including medical records, personal health records and clinical decision-support tools — to help them make the best decisions possible.

Promote Health and Wellness Initiatives
One of the greatest challenges we face is managing care for a growing number of people with chronic illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke — which collectively account for 70 percent of deaths and 75 percent of healthcare spending. We must promote healthy lifestyles, help patients manage their own health and shift our focus from delivering acute care to preventing disease in the first place.

Encourage Research on What Works
Today, an estimated 30 percent of healthcare spending is wasted on care that is ineffective, redundant or inappropriate. America needs an independent institute to support research comparing the relative effectiveness of new and existing medical procedures, drugs, devices and biologic medicines — enabling us to find out what works and put it into practice.

Foster Public-Private Coverage Solutions
We must recognize that — because the nation’s uninsured population is diverse — there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Efforts to cover more people need to be tailored toward three key types of uninsured people: those who are “squeezed out” by high costs, those who are eligible but not enrolled in public programs, and those with higher incomes who “opt out” of coverage.