Analysis & commentary. How health care reform must bend the cost curve

The true measure of health care reform's success is whether it drives down medical costs over the long term. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has several features designed to modernize the delivery of services and thus ensure a more efficient, more effective, and less expensive health care system. These features include bundling medical services into larger payment groups, using value-based purchasing, and improving care coordination. These changes could spark a productivity revolution in health care that would make it much more affordable and simultaneously increase the quality of care. The success of these efforts at controlling long-run cost growth will require activism from the government and the private sector.