title: The building blocks of health reform: achieving universal coverage and health system savings.
abstract: The presidential election has focused public attention on the need for health system reform--to ensure health insurance for all, to make health care more accessible and responsive to patients, and to slow the growth in health care cost. This issue brief sets forth a framework for expanding health coverage that offers Americans a choice of a product modeled on Medicare to those under age 65, made available through a national insurance connector. Coupled with reforms to Medicare provider payment, expansion of preventive health care, and improved information, such a strategy has the potential to achieve near-universal coverage and improve quality and access, while generating health system savings of $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
authors.affiliation: Commonwealth Fund, USA.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: Cathy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schoen
authors.forename: Sara R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Collins
mesh_terms: D017046:Cost Savings / Q000191:economics*; D017048:Health Care Costs; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare; D011057:Politics; D014481:United States; D019472:Universal Health Insurance / Q000458:organization & administration*