Families USA launches new center to lower costs, get better value from American health care - Families USA Skip to Main Content
10.12.2022 / Press Release

Families USA launches new center to lower costs, get better value from American health care

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Families USA launched its new Center for Affordable Whole Person Care today to revolutionize America’s health care system so that the industry is held accountable for delivering affordable, equitable, high-quality health care. The center will lay out an ambitious policy agenda and produce original research that puts families and people at the center of reform, regardless of the color of their skin, where they were born or what language they speak.

“Every time we’re at the pharmacy counter arguing over a bill, on the phone trying to schedule an appointment with a specialist, or having our eyes glaze over as we stare blankly at an indecipherable Explanation of Benefits statement, we experience the frustrating gaping holes in the American health care system,” said Frederick Isasi, Families USA’s executive director. “Our new center’s thought leadership, expertise and deep connections to consumer advocacy will offer recommendations for Congress and policymakers to tackle the next big health care issue – addressing the system’s out-of-whack incentives making care unaffordable and hurting the health of our nation’s families.”

In conjunction with today’s launch, the organization also released a new report, When What is Right is Also Popular: The Case for Person-Focused Care Through Payment Reform. The report lays out the popular case for payment reform as a way to bring down health care costs, improve care and eliminate inequities. It also signals to policymakers that taking action on payment reforms will help them win with voters who want the government to tackle these issues. The report is the third in a series on the organization’s People First Care initiative – which lays out a vision for making the American health care system more affordable, less complicated and focused on patients.

The center’s policy agenda includes urging elected officials to redesign the sector’s economic incentives to align with the needs of consumers and families, and implement policies that rein in abusive health care prices and make health care more affordable. Its work will focus on three overarching principles to help build a more just health care system that holds the health care industry accountable for delivering affordable, equitable, high-quality health care:

  • State and federal policies should reform the economic incentives of the health care system to ensure business interests are only achieved when consumer interests are.
  • A powerful, unified national consumer-led movement is essential to ensuring policymakers enact meaningful policy changes that uproot the fundamental economic distortions in health care payment and delivery that drive unaffordable and inequitable low-quality care.
  • Health care payment and delivery must be reoriented to deliver whole-person, holistic health.

With the establishment of the center, Families USA is building on its record of accomplishment helping to lead policy victories in the consumer-driven health care movement. Recent legislative successes include leadership in passing and implementing the national ban on surprise medical bills, and passage of landmark legislation authorizing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

 

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