From the Affordable Care Act to Affordable Care.

Continuing the Push for Cost Reductions The single most important issue in health care is eliminating unnecessary medical spending. Health costs have traditionally increased at 1% to 2% annually above the growth of the economy. Long-term financial security requires the growth in cost to slow to economic growth or less. With about one-third of medical spending estimated to be wasted, achieving lower growth is technically possible.1 The question is how to make it happen. There are 2 broad strategies for cost savings, both receiving extensive testing: transforming medical payments from volume based to value based and encouraging insurance policies to require greater out-ofpocket costs. Thepayment reformapproach isbasedon the idea that the volume of services has increased so