The HealthCare Summitv

The HealthCare Summit was founded in 2006 as a forum for experienced health care professionals to discuss and evaluate the cost effectiveness of the United States health care delivery system. The HealthCare Summit is an organization of the general public, non-governmental organizations, health insurance professionals, state government, and public service sector organizations. The membership is highly experienced in dealing with the costs and benefits of health care coverage, access to and quality of health care services.

HealthCare Summit participants believe the way to achieve significant reform is for all participants to accept their responsibility as providers, consumers, insurers and regulators of health care services and to embrace change that establishes measures to ensure a high quality, cost effective system that is financially viable, sustainable and fair. The public and private sectors must also address their responsibilities to provide a system that allows for consumer choice, and emphasizes wellness, prevention, education, and consumer empowerment.

The participants concluded that significant reform was needed in order to improve access to services, improve the quality of those services, and eliminate system waste which created significant financial burdens on users and payers. In 2009, the HealthCare Summit released a report entitled "Guiding Principles to Protect and Improve the Health Status of All Americans" with additional "Federal Reform Proposals."

After release, the HealthCare Summit report and eight federal reform proposals received wide acclaim. Most of the HealthCare Summit federal reform proposals were endorsed by Congress and incorporated into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts (ACA). This includes the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amendments, signed into law in 2010.

In 2016, the HealthCare Summit participants reconvened to discuss and evaluate the cost effectiveness, access to and quality of the United States health care delivery system since the enactment of the ACA, and the implementation of other recent Federal and State initiatives.

The 2009 original HealthCare Summit Guiding Principles of reform were:

1. Reform must address and reduce skyrocketing medical care costs.

2. Reform must include transparency of medical information, including cost that will enable treatment choices.

3. Reform must include public and private wellness promotion initiatives.

4. Reform must guarantee that all Americans have access to healthcare coverage, which includes health insurance and other alternatives, and must preserve or improve the current health insurance coverage or alternatives that provides benefits to 85% of Americans.

5. Reform must provide a source of coverage for the uninsurable populations of the United States.

In 2016, after review of the current health care system the HealthCare Summit participants added the following two additional HealthCare Summit guiding principles of reform relating to access and quality:

6. Reform must guarantee that all Americans have access to a “Medical Home,” coordinated by a primary care physician.

7. Reform must ensure that the consumers and treating physicians are the primary health care service decision-makers (not the insurance companies, the corporate owners of health care organizations and institutions, nor the regulatory agencies).