The Near-Term Future of Health Care Reform

Over the past decade, the US has made progress on the core problems of access, cost, and quality involving health care. Although it is valuable, this progress seems inadequate compared with the magnitude of the challenges. Approximately 20 million individuals in the US have received insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), yet an estimated 29 million (approximately 9% of the US population) remain uninsured. In addition, over the past decade, health care costs have stabilized at approximately 18% of gross domestic product, yet per capita costs are far higher than all other high-income countries, including Switzerland and Norway, in part because of an estimated nearly $1 trillion in annual waste. A similar pattern holds for quality: improvement, but persistent underperformance relative to spending. For example, only 43.7% of adults in the US with hypertension had their blood pressure appropriately assessed and managed in 2017-2018.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research