Health Care Report Could Save Nation $560 Billion Over Next Decade

The Bipartisan Policy Center released a list of 50 recommendations Thursday that would cut the federal deficit by almost $560 billion over the next decade, $300 billion of which would come from Medicare.

Called "A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-wide Cost Containment," the report is designed, according to its authors, to simultaneously lower health care costs while improving quality of care.

In order to do this, the team, which includes former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle, D-S.D. and Bill Frist R-Tenn., former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N. Mex. and former Congressional Budget Office Director Dr. Alice Rivlin, proposes reducing "the current regressive and inflationary approach" of subsidizing employer-provided health insurance by no longer allowing unlimited deductions.

The report further promotes preventative health care in order to reduce the costs of chronic illness. In addition, the team calls for scrapping the 40 percent excise tax on high-cost plans.

Overall, the measures attempt to address problems of inefficiencies included in "misaligned incentives" and "fragmented care" in the current fee-for-service model through incentivizing physicians, hospitals and other health care providers to better coordinate medical care.

"The four of us came together to change the conversation around how to improve health care and constrain cost growth," the team said in a joint press release. "What we learned is that, until better care is prioritized over more care, our nation will continue to face a problem with health care costs."

The report, they said, is a culmination of over a year of research, including stakeholder outreach as well as an analysis of the quantifiable impacts of the proposed policies.

"Too often we in Washington talk about health care as though it is little more than a line item on a budget table," they said. "Those of us who have experienced the best of health care know that is not how care should be delivered or policy crafted in this most personal of issues."