Initial Findings from HSC's 2005 Site Visits: Stage Set for Growing Health Care Cost and Access Problems

Originally published by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), 2005.

Initial Findings from HSC's 2005 Site Visits

Initial findings from HSC's 2005 round of site visits to 12 nationally representative communities revealed a health care landscape where the stage was set for growing cost and access problems. Across the communities studied, health care costs continued to rise at rates substantially above general economic growth, employers were shifting more financial burden to workers, and the number of uninsured Americans was climbing.

Several cross-cutting themes emerged from the site visits. Hospital systems were expanding aggressively, driven by competition for well-insured patients rather than by population health needs. The resulting capacity growth raised concerns about supply-driven demand and its effect on overall spending. Health plans, facing pushback from providers who had accumulated greater market leverage through consolidation, had limited ability to restrain cost growth. Employers expressed growing frustration with the lack of effective tools for managing their health benefit costs and were increasingly turning to higher deductibles and consumer-driven plan designs as their primary cost-containment strategy.

Safety net providers in many communities were under increasing strain as demand for their services grew while public funding remained flat or declined. The combination of rising costs, expanding uninsurance, and constrained safety net capacity pointed toward a widening gap between the health care needs of communities and the system's capacity to meet those needs affordably.

Sources and Further Reading

Center for Studying Health System Change, "Initial Findings from HSC's 2005 Site Visits: Stage Set for Growing Health Care Cost and Access Problems" (2005).