This new post by Jeffrey Sánchez appears on the Health Affairs Blog as part of a series stemming from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a number of tools to address longstanding problems in our fragmented health care system. At the national level, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are redefining Medicare through initiatives that promote payment and delivery reform, such as Shared Savings and Value-Based Purchasing. States are also seeking their own opportunities to move away from inefficient systems that reward volume over quality. In particular, state Medicaid programs have the potential to play a major role in these efforts.
Given the number of individuals Medicaid covers, it has the biggest potential impact in improving health care. Medicaid covers more than 1 in 5 Americans, funding more than 16 percent of total personal health spending in the United States. With ACA Medicaid expansion, enrollment increased in 2014 by 8.3 percent and led to an increased overall Medicaid spending growth of 10.2 percent. Total Medicaid spending growth in 2015 is expected to be 14.3 percent with a 13.2 percent enrollment growth. This is not an insignificant portion of both state and federal health care dollars. Thoughtful and concerted reforms to Medicaid have the potential to reduce spending and improve care quality. […]
Read the full article here.
