Despite Its Best Efforts, ObamaCare Might Improve Some Health Care Delivery | John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog | NCPA.org

ObamaCare has a lot of incentives that are supposed to improve health care delivery. Plus, it has a lot of punishments that it imposes on those who deliver health care the old-fashioned way. The incentives are failing. However, the punishments might be leading to unintended outcomes that improve medical care.One example of a failing incentive is the Accountable Care Organization ACO. The term, ACO, is now used somewhat generically for any arrangement that shifts financial risk from a third-party payer to a provider. After all, who would endorse an Unaccountable Care Organization? However, in the strict legal sense, an ACO is an arrangement between the federal government and a provider, whereby the provider assumes some of the financial risk of delivering high-quality care to Medicare beneficiaries.This is supposed to result in savings for taxpayers. The results are poor: In the first year, less than one third of physician-led ACOs saved money, and only one fifth of hospital-led ACOs did. And the first year is the year in which the low-hanging fruit should have been easy to pick: The law of mean-reversion suggests that it will become increasingly difficult to find savings in future years.Why are the results so bad?

via Despite Its Best Efforts, ObamaCare Might Improve Some Health Care Delivery | John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog | NCPA.org.