Investing in Health: Seven strategies for states looking to buy health, not just healthcare
Over the past decade, policy makers and industry leaders have pursued significant changes in the way we deliver and pay for health care, moving away from incentivizing volume and high-cost interventions, and linking payment more closely to “value.” Yet improvement in health care is not enough to improve health. An estimated 20 percent of health outcomes are linked to medical care; the remaining 80 percent stem from socioeconomic, environmental and behavioral factors—such as homelessness, food insecurity, exposure to intimate partner violence, adverse childhood experiences, and racism—collectively referred to as drivers of health.
This report developed in partnership with Manatt, The Health Initiative, The Commonwealth Fund, and Blue Shield of California Foundation, outlines seven stategies where states can leverage their purchasing power, regulatory authority, interagency partnerships, and bully pulpit to help change the paradigm of what the health system can and should achieve.