Consumers First Call to Action

Families USA, in partnership with American Academy of Family Physicians, American Benefits Council, American Federation of State, Country, and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Teachers, First Focus, and Pacific Business Group on Health, is launching Consumers First: The Alliance to Make the Health Care System Work for Everyone.

Consumer First’s Call to Action urges consumer health care organizations, employers, labor unions, health care professionals, and leaders across the nation to join in efforts to uproot the fundamental economic distortions in the nation’s health care payment and delivery system to ensure the best health and health care are affordable and accessible for every person across the country.

Despite the best efforts of policymakers, providers, academics, and advocates, and other stakeholders, health care prices continue to rise without commensurate improvement in quality. It is time for the vibrant network of consumer health care organizations, employers, labor unions, health care professionals, and leaders across the nation to join in efforts to uproot the fundamental economic distortions in the nation’s health care payment and delivery system to change fundamentally the economic incentives in the health care system that drive low value health care. America’s families need a unified and unbiased voice to provide a counterbalance to the entrenched interests of the health care sector that too often overlook the interests of America’s families, children, seniors and adults in the policies and programs that govern the U.S. health care system.

Consumer First’s Call to Action identifies six major distortions as the most urgent issues for immediate action:

• High and Rising Health Care Prices
• Distortions Created by Provider Payment Systems, Including Medicare
• Increased Health Care Industry Consolidation
• Federal Tax Policy for Nonprofit Health Care Institutions and Insurance Plans
• Flawed Workforce Policy
• Inadequate Access to Data and Transparency

Together we will work to educate Congress, the federal government, and state policymakers about key changes that are needed in health care policy to rectify these distortions. Consumers First has released its administrative and legislative policy agenda that crosscuts each of the six focus areas outlined in the Call to Action. The policy agenda is focused on achieving policy change in the short and intermediate terms. Consumers First will periodically update its policy priorities to reflect the changing policy landscape and to leverage new opportunities in alignment with the long-term vision defined in each of the its six focus areas

Listen to Consumers First’s inaugural telebriefing here (5/14/2019).