The Petris Center has released a new report, “Proposal to Use Three Initiatives to Lower Healthcare Spending and Finance Universal Health Insurance Coverage in California,” authored by Petris Center Director Dr. Richard Scheffler, Associated Director Dr. Brent Fulton, Petris Research Associate Donald Hoang, and Dr. Stephen Shortell. Health expenditures in California continue to grow with respect to the state’s gross domestic product, resulting in healthcare becoming more unaffordable to the state, employers, and individuals. In this report, the authors project health spending in the California from 2015 to 2022. They then estimate potential reductions in spending from the Berkeley Forum for Improving California’s Healthcare Delivery System’s initiatives to increase the use of global budgets/integrated care systems, patient-centered medical homes, and palliative care. By 2022, these initiatives generate an estimated $15.4 billion in health spending reductions, an amount sufficient to provide universal health insurance coverage in the state at a cost of $7.2 billion. The State of California, the federal government, and the private sector should consider accelerating their programs related to these initiatives to help achieve these health expenditure reductions.
A companion article “Financing Universal Coverage in California: A Berkeley Forum Roadmap” to this report was published on the Health Affairs Blog on March 29, 2018. You can read the blog post on the Health Affairs website here.
You can read the full report here.
