Consumers First 2021 Administrative Agenda: Policy Solutions to Strengthen the Infrastructure of U.S. Health Care Payment and Delivery

This publication was co-authored by Erica Cischke; American Academy of Family Physicians; Shawn Gremminger, Purchaser Business Group on Health; Jeremy Hoffman, American Federation of Teacher; Shaun O’Brien, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; Averi Pakulis, First Focus on Children; Ilyse Schuman, American Benefits Council.

The Biden administration has an important opportunity to enact bold administrative policy to address the inefficiencies, inequities, and market failures ingrained in the infrastructure of the U.S. health care system that drive high-cost and low-quality care. Some critical policy changes require congressional action as laid out in Consumers First’s legislative agenda for the 117th Congress. But there are many solutions that fall within the authority of the executive branch.

Consumers First urges the Biden administration to enact health care payment and delivery infrastructure policy reforms that improve health care affordability, equity, and quality in five key areas:

1. Make health care more affordable by preventing further consolidation of health care markets and lowering health care prices.
2. Increase price and quality transparency to create a more efficient, fair, and equitable health care system.
3. Improve health outcomes by shifting payment incentives to deliver health, reduce inequity, and emphasize service value over volume.
4. Strengthen our system of primary care by investing in services that keep people healthy and prevent them from needing to access more expensive care settings.
5. Establish national data-sharing and interoperability standards to reduce waste and enable real-time coordination of services across health sectors.