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Contact:  Eileen McMenamin, Director of Communications  

Washington, DC – Today, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a report cataloguing the range of financing reform options that policymakers will have to consider in any major health reform effort. It builds on the BPC’s ongoing work to address the delivery, cost and coverage challenges facing the nation’s health care system.

The report, entitled, “Financing the U.S. Health System: Issues and Options for Change,” was written by Meena Seshamani, M.D., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University; Jeanne Lambrew, Ph.D., Center for American Progress; and Joseph Antos, Ph.D., American Enterprise Institute.

Highlighting the rise in health care costs that is straining the budgets of government, families and employers, the paper notes the importance of containing future cost growth. It makes the unique contribution of documenting and discussing the implications of the finance options that policymakers will likely consider for the upcoming health reform debate.

In addition, the report explores the principal financing alternatives proposed by presidential candidates Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, as well as other systematic approaches that have been proposed to restructure the health care finance system.

“Health care financing reform is not an easy topic, but it is an essential element of effective and sustainable health care reform,” said Dr. Mark McClellan, co‐Director of the BPC’s Leaders’ Project and Director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution and Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair in Health Policy Studies. “This analysis of the strengths and shortcomings of a full range of financing options will help ensure that we have a serious, thoughtful and balanced process for meeting the challenge.”