AAFP Recognizes Baucus Proposal for Promoting Primary Care

The AAFP has moved quickly to acknowledge the importance of a health care reform proposal put forth by the chair of the Senate Finance Committee that emphasizes prevention and primary care services as a way to overhaul the nation's health care system.

In a recent letter, AAFP Board Chair Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., told Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that "family physicians appreciate your long-standing commitment to reforming the nation's health care system so that our nation's patients receive better quality and less costly care."

"That commitment comes with the recognition of the critical role that primary care plays in such health care," said King in the letter. "Your proposal says it well: 'Primary care is the keystone of a high-performing health care system.'"

King praised the Baucus proposal for providing a "thorough and comprehensive review of the current health care system's flaws and needs. There is much in your paper that family physicians agree needs to be accomplished."

The Baucus proposal, for example, calls for universal health coverage and a corresponding emphasis on prevention and care coordination for chronic diseases -- proposals that the AAFP endorses. King said, however, that all participants -- government, employers, insurers, hospitals, physicians, other care providers, and patients -- must share the burden of controlling health care costs. This requires a realignment of incentives to provide better care rather than more care and to use health care responsibly and knowledgeably, King said.

The AAFP, he explained, has devoted considerable time and effort to developing a proposal for health care coverage for all that focuses on redirecting resources to primary care and preventive health services. This entails a patient-centered medical home for every American, allowing for individual choice and shared responsibility and ensuring coverage for catastrophic health care costs, said King.

Baucus has not formally introduced his plan as a bill, choosing instead to issue a "Call to Action" paper (98-page PDF; About PDFs) that lays out a proposal for universal coverage. The Baucus proposal calls for increases in Medicare payments for services furnished by primary care health professionals. It also calls for an expansion of Medicare's role in testing the medical home to promote quality and efficiency, saying that patient participation in the medical home should be encouraged by reducing or eliminating co-payments for services provided in medical homes.