The Economy, Health Costs, and the Future

Featured Article

Salber PR, Bradley BE. Adding Quality to the Health Care Purchasing Equation. Health Affairs. Web Exclusive. 2001 November 28. Available at www.healthaffairs.org.
The authors share their perspective on what the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly the Health Care Financing Administration) can learn from General Motors' approach to value purchasing.

Other Articles

Birkmeyer JD, Birkmeyer CM, Wennberg DE and Young M. Leapfrog Patient Safety Standards: The Potential Benefits of Universal Adoption. Washington, DC: The Leapfrog Group. 2000 November. Available at www.leapfroggroup.org/safety1.htm.
This monograph outlines the benefits that could be achieved if every non-rural hospital in the United States implemented the following three hospital safety initiatives selected by The Leapfrog Group: computer physician entry; evidence-based hospital referral for high-risk surgery and neonatal intensive care; and, ICU physician staffing. The Leapfrog Group is a Business Roundtable- sponsored initiative of Fortune 500 companies and other large private and public sector health care purchasers.

Institute of Medicine. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. 2001. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Available at www.nap.edu/catalog/10027.html.
This is the second and final report from the Committee on Quality Health Care in America. The Committee was charged with identifying strategies for achieving a substantial improvement in the quality of health care to Americans. This report focuses on how the health care delivery system can be designed to innovate and improve care. It provides a strategic direction for redesigning the health care delivery system of the 21st century.

Mays GP, Hurley RE, Grossman JM. Issue Brief #45: Consumers Face Higher Costs as Health Plans Seek to Control Drug Spending. Center for Studying Health System Change. 2001 November. Available at www.hschange.org/CONTENT/389.
Insured consumers used to paying $5 or $10 for prescription drugs increasingly may face sticker shock at pharmacy counters as health plans take more aggressive steps to control rapidly rising drug costs. Based on interviews with health plan executives in the 12 nationally representative communities the Center for Studying Health System Changes visits every two years, this Brief examines plans' strategies to contain drug spending and the possible consequences for consumers.

Watson Wyatt. Health Care Costs 2002--A Watson Wyatt Worldwide Survey. 2001. Available at www.watsonwyatt.com/homepage/us/resnew.asp.
Health care costs are continuing to climb. Two hundred employers (68 percent having a minimum of 1,000 employees) were surveyed on how contributions for employee coverage for 2002 would change relative to the medical cost trend. Data were collected prior to the events of September 11, 2001.

For Further Reference

Lewin Associates. Health Coverage 2000: Cost and Coverage Analysis of Eight Proposals to Expand Health Insurance Coverage. 2000. Available at www.rwjf.org/app/rw_news_and_events/eventshc2000/hc-report-00/overview.htm.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (cancelled.). Health Insurance for Unemployed Workers. Statement of Diane Rowland, Executive Vice President, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; Executive Director, The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. 2001.

Rowland D. Low-Income and Uninsured: The Challenge for Extending Coverage. 2001 March 13. Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

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