The issues
Access and affordability
All Americans deserve affordable, quality health care coverage. We need a health care system that works for everyone.
Humana has long said that it will take bipartisan concepts and cooperation to solve our health care crisis. As a nation, we must make pre-existing conditions a thing of the past and guarantee coverage, with everyone participating in the system. When everyone participates, costs are spread fairly, and coverage is more affordable.
In fact, the health insurance industry was the first to propose reforms for itself, including not denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and not basing premiums on health status or gender. To ensure that no one falls through the cracks, our nation should provide financial assistance for those who can't afford health plan premiums and support small businesses so they can affordably offer coverage.
The health care reform law enacted in 2010 contains many of these important reforms, but it also includes some provisions that may have unintended consequences. For example, some provisions may result in higher costs for young adults, as well as seniors and disabled Americans who get their Medicare through a Medicare Advantage plan.
In addition, we all need to do more to control the underlying cause of our health care crisis – rising health care costs. Health care reform does not address some of the fundamental drivers of medical cost inflation, which means the cost curve is likely to be bent in the wrong direction.
To truly make coverage more affordable, all parts of our health care system must do more to create value, eliminate waste, encourage effective care and promote health. American health care must:
- Adopt and use the latest technology to connect the health care system
- Harness data to provide useful information that will help doctors improve the care they deliver and that will help consumers make well-educated health care buying decisions
- Reward results, not just the volume of care provided
- Eliminate needless variation, or differences in how care is delivered in various parts of the country
- Create incentives to develop treatments and products that measurably improve care
- Address costly, underlying issues like obesity and inactivity