Facts At Your Fingertips
The main objective of health care reform is to broaden access to quality care. Instead of expanding government programs and subsidies, the direct pathway rests on reducing the cost of care itself.
If consumers have the ability to compare prices, providers will have to compete and lower overall costs. In fact, studies from MRI and outpatient surgery show that when patients are motivated to compare prices, prices come down by almost twenty percent.
A highly effective tool to motivate patients to consider price is large, liberalized health savings accounts (HSAs), which incentivize saving.
Increasing the supply of medical services is another way to stimulate competition. In large part, this means removing barriers like unnecessary scope-of-practice limits on qualified nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
