September 22, 2006
NCQA Responds to Commonwealth Fund Scorecard
Margaret E. O’Kane, President of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), issued the following statement in response to The Commonwealth Fund’s National Scorecard on the U.S. Health Care System:
“Despite the fact that America has many of the finest health care professionals and technology in the world and spends far more than other countries on health care, this scorecard shows that Americans are simply not getting enough health for their health care dollar.
“The answer is not to spend more, but to change the way we spend health care dollars, focusing resources on areas where they can have the greatest impact, including chronic diseases and end of life care.
“The Commonwealth Fund scorecard estimates that if everyone with diabetes and high blood pressure had their conditions under control at the rates achieved by the top performing health plans, it would save an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 lives and $1 billion to $2 billion dollars each year. At NCQA we are proud of the role we have played in improving the quality of care. An estimated 50,000 lives have been saved through measuring and reporting on health care quality offered by HMO health plans for these conditions over the last decade.
“Today the majority of Americans choose preferred provider organization (PPOs) for their insurance. And NCQA is actively expanding our efforts to measure these plans, collecting voluntary submissions of performance data from more 80 PPOs this year as a first step toward holding all health plans to the same standards of performance and making this information available to the American public. Allowing consumers to make direct comparisons between all health plans, regardless of type, will serve as a powerful incentive for improvement.
“The Commonwealth Fund’s scorecard makes it clear that this nation must improve the quality of our health care system for all Americans. We must reverse the trend of spending more and more while covering fewer and fewer. Efforts to build an accountable health care system that includes all health plans, hospitals and physicians are gaining momentum and strength. NCQA is proud to join with the Commonwealth Fund, and other organizations including employers, consumer groups and government agencies to ensure that we are getting value for our health care dollars. We owe it to ourselves – and each other – to start spending our money more wisely.”
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