The building blocks of health reform: achieving universal coverage and health system savings

The presidential election has focused public attention on the need for health system reform--to ensure health insurance for all, to make health care more accessible and responsive to patients, and to slow the growth in health care cost. This issue brief sets forth a framework for expanding health coverage that offers Americans a choice of a product modeled on Medicare to those under age 65, made available through a national insurance connector. Coupled with reforms to Medicare provider payment, expansion of preventive health care, and improved information, such a strategy has the potential to achieve near-universal coverage and improve quality and access, while generating health system savings of $1.6 trillion over 10 years.