USofCare Introduces Ambitious New Project designed to Advance Efforts to Reform Health Care

Washington, D.C. — Today, United States of Care (USofCare) unveiled its latest initiative, the Building Blocks of Health Reform, a multifaceted framework designed to help lawmakers and the public understand the key issues, trade-offs, and questions associated with efforts to reform America’s health care system. In concert with the recently introduced Real People, Real Talk initiative., Building Blocks aims to change how health care policy is developed in the United States.

Building Blocks’ core value lies in its commitment to an evidence-based approach, highlighted in the first online tool that allows users to view examples and best practices on how well today’s approaches to health care are meeting peoples’ needs. The project identifies three key areas that policymakers need to address in any approach to health reform:  

1. Benefits and costs to consumers: How do people select coverage and access care? This block outlines key considerations for consumers as they navigate the system, including covered benefits, how coverage is structured and how much people can afford to pay.
2. Management of administrative functions: How are the core functions that make our system run carried out? This block identifies the important activities undertaken by health insurers and other entities that make our system run, from building networks of health care providers to coding, paying and managing claims.
3. Sustainable approaches to provider payments: How are health care providers paid for the work they do? This block lays out different options for setting provider rates an incorporates delivery system reforms, innovations, and value-based payments to ensure the system is sustainable long term.

“Ensuring every person in America has access to quality, affordable health care is a big, bold, daunting effort.  To accomplish this mission, we must work in new ways, which includes taking a different approach to how we think about policy,” said Kristin Wikelius, Senior Director of Policy. “Building Blocks of Health Reform won’t provide policymakers one solution but will present evidence and explain trade-offs in an easy-to-understand manner so people can make choices with complete information.  We believe Building Blocks will be a helpful resource for people wanting to tackle health care policy differently.”

Ultimately, Building Blocks of Health Reform helps policymakers address their constituents’ health care challenges, giving them easy access to robust, rigorous analysis of the biggest barriers to making health care more accessible and affordable. The project seeks to fill gaps in the reform debates, not recreate solutions already under consideration.

To learn more about Building Blocks of Health Reform and to suggest evidence or examples to add to the framework, please visit UnitedStatesofCare.org/buildingblocks.