Designing Administrative Organizations for Health Reform

Paul N. Van de Water
Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Many proposals for expanding health coverage involve the creation of organizations to produce information on comparative effectiveness, make coverage decisions, manage the marketplace for health insurance, or offer a public health insurance plan. Designing Administrative Organizations for Health Reform describes proposals to create new entities or agencies as part of a reformed health coverage system, catalogs the major types of federal executive agencies and non-governmental entities, and considers some of the issues involved in choosing an appropriate organizational design. It concludes that organizations that use governmental powers and funds and make public policy need to be accountable as well as effective.

Click here to download the full working paper, commissioned by a joint study panel of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the National Academy of Public Administration on Administrative Solutions in Health Reform. For a list of other papers and study panel members, click here. The project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.