O'Conner Report, "Build An American Health Care System" Contest

Balanced Choice Health Care System

The Balanced Choice Health Care System (Balanced Choice) offers a new paradigm for restoring to health care the normal economic forces that create lower prices, improved quality and greater accessibility of services. It is more effective and efficient than either the paradigm of traditional insurance or the paradigm of a traditional single payer system. By combining ideas from single payer proposals and market systems and adding innovation, Balanced Choice proposes a change in the way of thinking about financing health care. This proposal satisfies the major concerns of all stakeholders (patients, providers, and employers) and provides all Americans with both complete health care security and freedom of choice.

First, the proposal presents the thirteen points that explain the structure and organization of Balanced Choice. This is followed by a summary of the four improvements that Balanced Choice shares with a traditional single payer system, nine innovations that are unique to Balanced Choice, and seven additional advantages of Balanced Choice.

Second, the Balanced Choice Pharmacy Benefit System is explained in detail as an example of how it restores normal economic forces, and how it simultaneously provides both health care security and pressure for lower prices, higher quality, and greater accessibility. The pharmacy benefit is the one part of Balanced Choice that can be implemented, independently of the entire proposal, as a Medicare Pharmacy Benefit Program. If implemented in Medicare, it would not only serve Medicare beneficiaries, but could also control the excessive price increases in the pharmaceuticals market.

Third, the theoretical problems in other proposals are reviewed and followed by a brief presentation of how Balanced Choice restores normal economic forces.

Fourth, using 1999 health care costs, Balanced Choice proposes a financing plan that can fund universal coverage while offering an overall savings of combined taxes and insurance costs to all stakeholders - employers, consumers, and providers.

Fifth, although as an innovative paradigm shift, Balanced Choice may appear complicated, in reality it is easy to use, and it operates like other parts of the free market system. To demonstrate how it works in practice, its impact on each stakeholder is described. Brief vignettes that illustrate the choice-making processes of consumers and providers are included.

The explanation of Balanced Choice is followed by a section describing how it meets the contest terms and conditions. Balanced Choice offers a point-by-point response to the Health Care Magna Carta, along with a listing of the Balanced Choice principles. It outlines the requirements for accountability and responsibility for all participants, the overall plans for regulation, a management structure plan, a transitional proposal, and an innovative design for advocacy and oversight.

Overall, Balanced Choice is a proposal that truly meets and balances the needs of all stakeholders and offers a reasonable solution for problems in the health care system. It converts health care from a uniquely complicated system to one that is no more difficult for consumers and providers to use and understand than the choices they make in the grocery store. Moreover, Balanced Choice restores healthy economic forces that press for lower prices, higher quality and greater accessibility.

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