The Association for Direct Care (ADC) today welcomed action by the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury to strengthen the Transparency in Coverage requirements and make health care pricing information more accurate, accessible, and useful.
The United States leads the world in per-capita health spending, largely due to high and variable provider prices that are not consistently linked to quality. Relative to both peer nations and public insurers, prices paid by the approximately 160 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance are particularly high. Collectively, employer-sponsored insurance accounts for $1.5 trillion in health care spending annually.5 Health insurance premiums and deductibles have grown far faster than both inflation and worker wages. The annual family premium has reached $26 000 and the average deductible for individuals purchasing insurance through the exchanges is nearly $3000.6 As an increasing share of worker compensation is funneled toward health care, workers have less in take-home pay.
In almost every part of the American economy, the person paying the bill knows the price and chooses who to pay. Health care is the glaring exception.
A growing maze of intermediaries, opaque contracts and misaligned incentives separates those paying for health care from those delivering it, adding costs and making the health care dollar nearly impossible to follow.
WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, employers, health care clinicians, and health care innovators launched the Association for Direct Care, a new coalition dedicated to expanding direct contracting, value-based care, and giving employers, clinicians and patients greater control over how health care is purchased and delivered. The Association will advocate for policies that remove barriers to direct…
Employer groups and companies that specialize in direct contracting arrangements are opening a new front in their battle against health insurance companies.
Tentatively dubbed the Direct Care Coalition, the group is expected to launch in the fall. Likely members made their case at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing Wednesday. Witnesses pitched direct contracting with providers and cutting out the middleman as a solution to rising health benefit costs, and asked lawmakers to enact policies that would make that easier.