The 119-page report is a rehash of ongoing administration efforts to deregulate the healthcare industry with the hope of fostering competition and lowering prices.
The Trump administration unveiled its blueprint Monday for reforming the nation's healthcare delivery system through freemarket principles and deregulation to encourage competition and consumer choice.
The 119-page Reforming America's Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition, was more than a year in the making and largely reiterates the administration's previously announced positions on healthcare sector reforms.
"This report identifies barriers on the federal and state levels to market competition that stifle innovation, lead to higher prices, and do not incentivize improvements in quality," the report's coauthors, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, wrote in an introductory letter to President Donald Trump.
"It recommends policies that will foster a healthcare system that delivers high-quality care at affordable prices through greater choice, competition, and consumer-directed health care spending," the trio wrote.
Among the report's recommendations:
- Foster policies that broaden providers' scope of practice and healthcare workforce mobility, including telehealth.
- Streamline federal funding for graduate medical education to more efficiently address physician supply shortages.
- Urge states to scale back or repeal Certificate of Need laws to encourage competition.
- Encourage the development of flexible value-based care models that offer risk-based incentives for providers, without burdening small or rural practices.
- Scale back government mandates on health insurance coverage.
- Promote and expand Health Saving Accounts.
- Implement reference pricing, and develop price transparency initiatives.
Reforming America's Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition by HLMedit on Scribd
“This report identifies barriers on the federal and state levels to market competition that stifle innovation, lead to higher prices, and do not incentivize improvements in quality.”
Reforming America's Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition
John Commins is the news editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
States urged to eliminate Certificate of Need laws.
Urges broader scope-of-practice and telemedicine policies to improve healthcare workforce mobility.
Price transparency, scale back of federal mandates on healthcare coverage also encouraged.