National Coalition of Health Care Consumers, Clinicians, Workers and Employers Releases New Policy Agenda Urging Trump Administration to Lower Health Costs and Improve Health Outcomes - Families USA Skip to Main Content
06.04.2025 / Press Release

National Coalition of Health Care Consumers, Clinicians, Workers and Employers Releases New Policy Agenda Urging Trump Administration to Lower Health Costs and Improve Health Outcomes

WASHINGTON, D.C. – While policymakers return to Washington this week to debate major legislative changes to our health coverage and care, Consumers First, a national alliance representing families, working people, employers and primary care clinicians, released its new administrative advocacy agenda of vetted and bipartisan policy recommendations that will advance the collective goals of making our health care system work better, lower health care costs, and improve health outcomes for all Americans.

Consumers First is releasing this agenda of consensus proposals for consideration and action by the Trump administration to move to a more sustainable, efficient health system that will ensure all Americans have access to high-quality, low-cost care. These recommendations for reducing waste, eliminating inefficiencies and addressing market failures would improve the overall value of the U.S. health care system in 2025 and beyond.

“In contrast with the Congressional debate on contentious proposals cutting coverage and care, the Trump Administration can take these common sense vetted and bipartisan solutions to actually contain health costs. These proposals are aligned with what President Trump said he would do to advance affordability on health costs and would save American families, employers, and taxpayers money,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “These proposals would actually take on the waste, fraud and abuse by big health care corporations in our system, rather than the budget bill Congress is currently rushing through that cuts coverage and care and increases costs, complexity and confusion. If we want to address high health care costs and inefficient care, we need to address those corporate practices that drive up costs and drive down wages for workers and quality of care for patients. This Consumers First agenda puts forward clear, actionable solutions that will increase competition and hold these big health corporations accountable to deliver the care people need at a price they can afford.”

The policy agenda focuses on the following five key policy priorities:

  1. Drive down costs and improve quality for consumers, working people and employers by addressing consolidated health care markets and removing distortions created by ineffective payment systems.
  2. Lower prescription drug costs for our nation’s families.
  3. Increase price and quality transparency to create a more efficient, fair and equitable health care system.
  4. Establish national data-sharing and interoperability standards to reduce waste and improve health care quality.
  5. Develop and implement a national health workforce strategy to address persistent shortages and improve care delivery.

“Primary care is the foundation of a high-functioning health system, yet decades of underinvestment have left it strained — driving up costs, compromising outcomes and putting patients and communities at risk,” said R. Shawn Martin, EVP and CEO of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “We urge the administration to take decisive, strategic action to reverse this trend, including addressing distorted financial incentives and market consolidation that reduce competition, reducing administrative barriers that hinder care delivery and strengthening the primary care workforce. These are not partisan issues, but common-sense solutions that move us toward a healthier future.”

“The American Benefits Council, representing the employer plan sponsors who cover more almost 180 million people nationwide, are proud to stand with American voters and our Consumers First partners in calling for the administration to take action to lower health care costs,” said Ilyse Schuman, the Council’s senior vice president, health and paid leave policy. “We urge the administration to embrace and enact the common-sense, bipartisan solutions outlined in this policy agenda, which will help drive health care value for working families.

Consumers First brings together diverse organizations representing families, working people, employers and primary care clinicians to redesign the economic incentives of health care payment and delivery that drive unaffordable, low-quality health care. The coalition presents a unified voice for health care consumers to counterbalance entrenched industry interests in health care, with the goal of ensuring the policies that govern our health care system put at the center the needs of the people it is supposed to serve.

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