The Five Bills Congress Should Pass

Congress ought to forget about a massive, thousand page bill and instead pass five separate bills as outlined below.

Bill 1: Improving the delivery & administration of medical care

• Quality-based payment
• Health-based health reform
• Rewarding individual health and wellness
• Liability reform
• Health IT

Bill 2: Creating real competition & choice in the insurance market

• Advanceable and refundable tax credit to low-income individuals and families to purchase private insurance
• Nationwide market for insurance purchasing
• Small business health plans
• State flexibility to expand coverage
• Underwriting reforms
• Consumers’ right to know

Bill 3: Saving Medicare & Medicaid from bankruptcy

• Eliminate of Fraud
• Implement recommendations from the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare
• Cut waste and lower administrative costs through electronic claims processing and payment
• Expand Medicare Centers of Excellence through shared savings with beneficiaries

Bill 4: Investing in science & innovation

• Science- and investment-based budgeting 
• Generational scoring
• Modernize CBO/OMB scoring models
• Reform FDA processes to speed and encourage innovation
• Undersecretary of Commerce for Health

Bill 5: Litigation Reform

• Create safe harbors for physicians who use nationally recognized and adopted best practices, protocols and standards of care;
• Allow states to create specialized health courts;
• Develop minimal qualifications or standards for physicians who serve as expert witnesses;
• Allow physicians to say “I’m sorry” without it being used against them as evidence of implication;
• Create a cap for non-economic (pain and suffering) damages; and
• Abolish the collateral source rule.