Health Care: Commonwealth Fund Report on Three Reform Scenarios
A June report, “Fork In The Road: Alternative Paths To A High Performance U.S. Health 
System,” authored by Cathy Schoen, Karen Davis, Stuart Guterman, and Kristof Stremikis of the Commonwealth Fund, analyzes three health care reform options specifically dealing with the “public-plan” option for people under age 65.
The authors sum up their findings in the abstract:
“The approaches include: 1) a public health plan paying providers at Medicare rates, offered alongside private plans in a national health insurance exchange; 2) a public plan paying providers at rates set midway between Medicare and private plan rates, offered alongside private plans in an insurance exchange; and 3) no public plan, with only private plans offered to employers and individuals through an insurance exchange. All three approaches, if combined with Medicare payment and system reform, would produce substantial savings over time, but option 1 would yield the most—$3.0 trillion in cumulative health system savings over 2010 to 2020, compared with $2.0 trillion (option 2) and $1.2 trillion (option 3).”
(Tip of the Hat, Philanthropy News Digest.)