The Health Policy Consensus Group

The Health Policy Consensus Group is a task force of leading health care economists and health policy analysts, including researchers at the major market-oriented think tanks. The Consensus Group is working to increase public awareness that the tax treatment of employment-based health insurance underlies many of the problems facing the public health sector in the United States.

The incentive-based reforms the group proposes are intended to strengthen and rationalize the health care market. The Consensus Group believes that the competitive market is the most appropriate way to restrain costs and to give Americans more responsibility and opportunity to choose their health insurance and health care arrangements.

The group considers different approaches to reform and provides education on their benefits and disadvantages to help the public and policymakers understand the balances that must be struck in any reform effort. Members have been working together to provide policy advice since 1993. The group endorses basic principles but does not offer specific legislative proposals. The Galen Institute, a not-for-profit health and tax policy research organization, coordinates and facilitates the work of the Consensus Group.

The Consensus Group produced a statement entitled "A Vision for Consumer-Driven Health Care Reform." These ideas are based upon many meetings and exchanges of information by members of the Consensus Group, who are listed as signatories at the end of this booklet. The views expressed in this document reflect those of the individual signers and not necessarily their organizations. Grace-Marie Arnett, president of the Galen Institute, and John S. Hoff, health care attorney and Galen Institute trustee, were the principal writers for this vision statement.