State-Based Health Reforms Demand State-Based Performance Measurements

This month, PRI publishes the second edition of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership (IHOP), the only project that ranks states’ health care according to principles of individual choice. This is very different from other rankings of health care in the states, because each IHOP measurement calls for less government intervention, while other rankings often favor big government spending on health programs, as well as centralized control.  As I noted last year, significant challenges make it very difficult to connect the performance of the health care “system” with actual health outcomes.  A recent Commonwealth Foundation publication included performance measurements of both health care access and “lifestyle” inputs. In my analysis, I pointed out that access and quality measurements have hardly any relation to healthy lives.

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