Our nation’s troubled economy has brought the pressing need for access to quality, affordable health care into sharp relief. Far too many Americans live without adequate insurance, and escalating costs are bankrupting working families and businesses at an alarming rate. The wildly uneven quality delivered by the American health care system leaves us lagging behind most other industrialized nations in terms of life expectancy and other key measures of care.
NCQA is dedicated to improving the quality of health care delivered to all Americans. We regard the recent enactment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and the American Recovery and Renewal Act as significant steps towards maintaining and improving access to quality care. The two measures expand access to the system and provide for investments in performance measurement, health information technology and comparative effectiveness research.
But it remains clear that further, more comprehensive health reform is needed if we are to keep the promise of the high-quality, high-performing, affordable care we all deserve. That promise can be kept if comprehensive health reform:
- Holds health plans and health care providers accountable for the quality and efficiency of the care they deliver;
- Reforms our health care delivery system to make care coordination and primary care a priority -- and reforming the payment system to recognize those priorities;
- Promotes the use of health information technology to bring our antiquated health care administration systems into the 21st century; and
- Invests in evidence stewardship and quality measurement based on evidence to speed advances in care from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside.
NCQA stands ready to work with the Administration and the 111th Congress to make these reform ideas a reality.