Statement by American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)
Senior Policy Director, Stephen Finan
WASHINGTON, D.C. – October 7, 2011 – “The Institute of Medicine report on essential benefits is a thorough first attempt to address the challenging and complex issue of determining a minimum standard of health coverage. The report properly identifies the weaknesses in the insurance system today and the need to balance coverage and cost as we go forward. To develop an essential benefits package, the administration must take the Institute’s report and fully review it in a publicly transparent manner to ensure that a final product guarantees access to affordable, meaningful coverage that includes the full continuum of evidence-based prevention, treatment and follow-up care that fully addresses the needs of people with cancer and other life-threatening conditions.
“While setting a premium target is a provocative attempt to rein in costs, we are concerned that in practice doing so could reduce the incentives of health insurers and providers to deliver care more efficiently to control costs and simultaneously improve outcomes. By setting a target premium the Department of Health and Human Services could inadvertently create a disincentive for innovation that could ultimately serve as a cost saver.
“The IOM report makes thoughtful suggestions regarding efforts to improve transparency in a health care system that has been historically opaque. By improving data collection on how patients use health care, all stakeholders in the health care system will have a better understanding of how the system works.
“A robust essential benefits package has the potential to provide an historic improvement over a system that has resulted in insurers selling health plans that are wholly inadequate to meet the needs of someone with a chronic disease such as cancer.
“The report is an excellent starting point for a robust discussion about health coverage issues that affect patients with chronic disease. ACS CAN will continue to work to ensure that cancer patients and their families have access to meaningful health coverage that is adequate and affordable.”
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Alissa Havens or Steven Weiss
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Phone: (202) 661-5772 or (202) 661-5711
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]