Improving Health and Health Care

Despite, and in a sense because of, the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, US health care is still badly in need of reform and revitalization. Instead of more federal regulation and subsidies, what US health care needs is adoption of market principles, starting with broad empowerment of the patient-consumer. The proposals advanced in this volume would replace many counterproductive and outdated federal policies with practical, market-based reforms that aim to provide all Americans with access to high-quality health care at affordable prices. Replacing the ACA. The starting point for renewing American health care must be replacement of the ACA with a genuine, consumer-driven approach to expanding health insurance coverage. The ACA moved power and authority over the direction of US health care from consumers, employers, and the states to the federal government. A replacement plan must be built on a more decentralized approach, with consumers given the ability to make choices for themselves and authority returned to the states to oversee health care markets.