New Coalition Advances a New Direction for U.S. Health Care Policy
To win on affordability and access, put patients back in charge by directing dollars to them, empowering them to drive their own health care decisions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Health policy experts today announced a new movement with a radical approach to health care policy – empowering patients with greater control, choice, and access by shifting health care funds from third parties and special interests to patients and consumers.
The movement – Fund the Patient – would seek to disrupt today’s health care system dominated by these third parties: government health programs, insurance companies, and big hospital systems that separate patients from care, drive up costs, and limit which doctors patients can see, the treatments patients can try, and how much patients pay.
Fund the Patient brings together doctors, patient advocates, and policy experts in the fight for better health care, including the following Advisory Board members:
Ge Bai, Professor of Accounting and Health Policy at Johns Hopkins
Terry Wilcox, co-founder of Patients Rising
Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio, University of California San Francisco Professor of Neurosurgery
“When patients don’t have control of their health care dollars, they can’t personally benefit from lower prices and a better health care system,” Bai said. “Government regulations like those in the Affordable Care Act detach patients from their healthcare dollars, causing unaffordability and restricting access.”
Patients should be the ultimate customers in health care – and Fund the Patient recognizes that third parties have replaced patients in this role. Too often, third parties have dominated health care policy debates when that should be focused on delivering better results for patients. Fund the Patient recognizes that patients should be the ultimate customer and make decisions for their own health care.
Funding patients directly, rather than through third parties, is a better way to deliver positive outcomes and inform the American people on how to make the best decisions for their health.
“Fund the Patient isn’t just another movement – it’s a movement focused on educating patients and doctors on how to take back control,” Wilcox said. “Putting patients back in the health care driver’s seat is a winning formula that will deliver higher quality care, lower prices, and a personalization of medicine not seen before.”
Through its advocacy work, Fund the Patient will help patients choose the health care they deserve. Promoting policies that put health care dollars back in patients' hands – such as health savings accounts – are the first steps to creating a better future for patient care. But as transformative as these tools are, they only work if patients know how to use them.
“Our immediate focus will be on patient education and outreach,” explains DiGiorgio. “When patients are aware of how to control their own healthcare funding, providers will compete for them, and they'll have more customization for options that fit their needs."
To learn more about Fund the Patient’s mission, principles, and vision for health care policy, visit fundthepatient.com.
About Fund the Patient
Fund the Patient is a movement that offers a supplemental alternative to status-quo health care policy – directly giving patients health care funds that would otherwise go to insurers, big hospital systems, and government programs. Through patient education and issue advocacy, Fund the Patient aims to empower patients to choose care options with direct government funding, lower barriers to access care, and provide a quality, flexible patient experience for all Americans.
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