Curie Brief
Turn on cookies to sign in
Signing in saves your progress to your Curie account. We can only do that with cookies on — turn them on to continue.
News
The U.S. spends $5.6 trillion on healthcare annually, yet the debate keeps circling around who pays rather than why costs are so high. A new op-ed argues the real fix lies in restructuring incentives—empowering employers, states, and technology to demand better value. Without tackling root causes, no subsidy or coverage cut will solve the problem.
The U.S. spends a staggering $5.6 trillion on healthcare each year—roughly one-fifth of the entire economy—yet the political debate keeps focusing on who foots the bill rather than why the bill is so enormous. Caroline Pearson, executive director of the Peterson Center on Healthcare, argues that the real culprit is a system structurally designed to reward higher prices over efficiency or better outcomes, and that meaningful change requires restructuring those incentives.
Pearson identifies three major levers for change: employers, states, and technology. Employers, who collectively spend $1 trillion annually on coverage, often lack the data to know whether they're getting fair prices—yet those who have acted on claims data have cut costs by up to 20%. States, as regulators and Medicaid administrators, control $860 billion in annual spending and have largely untapped authority to curb anti-competitive consolidation. And digital health tools, if tied to outcome-based payment models, could unlock billions in savings.
By the Numbers
Why it matters: Without addressing the structural incentives driving up costs, every policy fight over subsidies or coverage cuts is just rearranging deck chairs. Employers and states together control nearly $2 trillion in annual healthcare spending—if they use that leverage, real change is possible.
