Commonwealth Foundation Report Charts Path Toward More Affordable, Accessible Health Care

Harrisburg, Pa., November 13, 2023 — Today, the Commonwealth Foundation released a new report outlining five ways to improve Pennsylvania’s health care system. The backgrounder, “The Personal Option for Health Care in Pennsylvania,” details how Pennsylvania lawmakers can improve health care access and affordability by embracing choice and transparency.

The report advocates implementing a “personal option” in Pennsylvania health care, in contrast to a public option. Whereas a public option would impose top-down, one-size-fits-all government mandates on the state’s health care system, a personal option would give Pennsylvanians more control over their health care choices, greater access to care, and higher levels of affordability.

The report proposes reforms that will:

Keep and expand the health care systems that work.
Remove bureaucratic rules that limit access to health care providers.
Empower patients to shop and save by enforcing hospital price transparency rules.
Make health care more convenient and flexible by expanding access to telemedicine.
Improve and safeguard health care access in Medicaid by focusing resources on eligible patients.

“For far too many Pennsylvanians, our state’s health care system is inaccessible, confusing, and unaffordable. The government keeps expanding its role while access declines and costs surge,” said Elizabeth Stelle, the director of policy analysis at the Commonwealth Foundation. “The personal option is a crucial step toward putting the patient first. It would institute much-needed competition to empower patients with more plan options, lower prices, and greater transparency.”

View the full Commonwealth Foundation analysis, here.

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Christian Stellakis at [email protected] or call (315) 720-3561.

###

The Commonwealth Foundation transforms free-market ideas into public policies so all Pennsylvanians can flourish.