New Policy Agenda to Lower Health Costs and Improve Health Outcomes Unveiled by National Coalition of Health Care Consumers, Clinicians, Workers and Employers - Families USA Skip to Main Content
02.12.2025 / Press Release

New Policy Agenda to Lower Health Costs and Improve Health Outcomes Unveiled by National Coalition of Health Care Consumers, Clinicians, Workers and Employers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, responding to voters clamoring for health care affordability and value, Consumers First, a national alliance representing families, working people, employers, and primary care clinicians, released its new legislative agenda of vetted and bipartisan policy solutions that seek to lower health care costs and improve health outcomes in this country.

Consumers First is releasing the agenda for consideration and action for the 119th Congress, to move to a more sustainable health system that will ensure all Americans have access to high-quality, low-cost care. The 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.

“If President Trump and Congress are serious about advancing affordability, including on health costs, they should pass these real, vetted, bipartisan solutions that will save people, families and taxpayers money,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “Big health care corporations, including hospital systems and pharmaceutical companies, are currently incentivized to get bigger, rather than better. Increased consolidation and other health industry practices drive up costs, wasting taxpayer dollars and driving down wages for workers, and pose a direct threat to the health and financial security of patients and families across this country. This Consumers First agenda has put 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 physicians are the backbone of our health care system, but years of underinvestment in primary care has led to poorer population health, more expensive care and worse outcomes for patients and communities,” said R. Shawn Martin, EVP and CEO, American Academy of Family Physicians. “It’s imperative that Congress and the new administration focus on advancing common sense policies that meet our shared goal of improving the health of patients, including addressing consolidation, bolstering the primary care workforce, alleviating administrative burden for physicians and updating Medicare physician payment to improve access to care.”

“The American Benefits Council, representing the employer plan sponsors who cover more than 178 million people nationwide, are proud to stand with American voters and our Consumers First partners in calling for legislation to lower health care costs,” said Ilyse Schuman, the Council’s senior vice president, health and paid leave policy. “We urge Congress to embrace and enact the common-sense, bipartisan solutions outlined in this policy agenda, which will help drive health care value for working families.”

“The Consumers First legislative agenda in many ways mirrors the policy priorities articulated by PBGH’s membership, which includes the largest purchasers of health care in the U.S.,” stated Elizabeth Mitchell, President and CEO of the Purchaser Business Group on Health. “This agenda lays out vetted, commonsense reforms that will re-establish competition, increase transparency, and enable a functional health care marketplace. When purchasers have the right tools, they have demonstrated time and again that lower costs and higher quality for employees is achievable.”

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.