James C. Capretta, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on May 16 at a hearing on “Identifying Opportunities for Health Care Delivery System Reform: Lessons from the Front Line.” Jim’s testimony expands on these three points:
“1. The source of many of our problems in health care delivery is the dominant Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) program. It will be nearly impossible to move to a high-value, low-cost delivery system if Medicare FFS continues to operate as it does today.
“2. The 2010 health care law’s efforts at “delivery system reform” — most of which fall within Medicare — are very unlikely to be the solution people are hoping for because the federal government is not good at fostering a high-value, low-cost provider network.
“3. A more reliable approach to higher-quality and lower-cost patient care is strong competition in a functioning marketplace.”