title: Combining a global health budget with a market-driven delivery system. Can it be done?
abstract: Two correlated problems, rampant escalation of health-care costs and the lack of access to health care for many Americans, challenge long-term solutions to our health-care crisis. Historically, free markets have provided the most effective method of controlling costs. Although the current health-care system is highly competitive, it falls far short of being a truly competitive marketplace emphasizing competition around cost and quality. A health-care system based on managed competition in which the marketplace is structured to create competition on cost and quality provides great promise for regulating health costs. Erosion of health-care benefits under our current system of employer-based health insurance threatens the effectiveness of any market-based solution. The 21st Century Health Care Act combines the cost-effectiveness and universal access derived through a single revenue spigot with the power of a market approach created by managed competition.
authors.affiliation: United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bingaman
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Billy
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007342:Insurance Benefits; D008297:Male; D014481:United States