The Role of Independent Commissions in Controlling Costs and Enhancing Value: International Lessons

The experience of other countries may help inform the debate as U. S. policymakers grapple with health reform and the regulatory mechanisms needed to contain costs while improving quality, efficiency and coverage.

This briefing, cosponsored by The Commonwealth Fund, examined the quasi-governmental authorities that Germany, the Netherlands and France have established. Operating within broad legislative frameworks and with relative independence from their respective health ministries, these entities aim to control costs, oversee quality, regulate insurance and provider payment, and ensure competition.

Each of the structures in these countries differs in advisory or regulatory authority, and in public/private status. Yet they share the common element of evidence-based and transparent decision-making that is at arms length from the political process.

How and why have these quasi-governmental authorities come into being? What is their scope of power, and the mechanism they provide for bringing stakeholders together in health care decision making? What are the respective roles of government and the private market? How successful are these entities in achieving their purposes? How useful are lessons fro

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Speaker Presentations

Karl Lauterbach Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Dominique Polton Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Cathy van Beek Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

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