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The American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL) has announced the publication of Beyond Medicare For All: Cracking the Code of the Healthcare Affordability Crisis by veteran healthcare journalist Ken Terry. With a foreword by health policy expert David W. Johnson, Terry's book proposes a bold, workable reform model that provides universal access to high-quality care at an affordable price.
Terry, whose previous AAPL book, Physician-Led Healthcare Reform: A New Approach to Medicare For All, was published in 2020, builds on that foundation with a new financing framework that splits healthcare costs into two distinct parts. Competing primary care groups would take financial responsibility for basic care through a subscription model, while health insurers would cover hospital care, post-acute care, and higher-cost outpatient services such as ambulatory surgery and cancer care. Employer and government subsidies for basic care subscriptions and major medical insurance would ensure universal access.
"In the wake of last fall's government shutdown and the ongoing debate over Obamacare subsidies, it has become clear that our healthcare system is experiencing an existential crisis with implications for all of us," Terry writes. "Beyond Medicare for All, unlike our major political parties, outlines a clear solution that could make first-rate healthcare affordable for everyone."
A Practical Framework for a Broken System
Beyond Medicare For All: Cracking the Code of the Healthcare Affordability Crisis offers a carefully structured model designed to reduce waste, control costs, and expand access to care across the entire U.S. population.
The book addresses four critical areas of healthcare reform:
- Primary Care Financing: How competing, at-risk basic care groups can rescue primary care and control costs through population health management and waste reduction
- Hospital Budgeting: How global hospital budgets — modeled on Maryland's long-established approach — can incentivize cost discipline in health systems
- Insurance Market Reform: How restructured coverage pools can make insurer participation viable and profitable
- Emerging Challenges: Health IT developments, rural healthcare, social determinants of health, and a novel proposal for slowing technology-driven cost growth
Addressing the Affordability Crisis Head-On
Beyond Medicare For All takes on questions that have stymied policymakers for decades: How can the U.S. achieve universal coverage without a federal government takeover of healthcare? How can primary care be made financially sustainable while also serving as a cost-control mechanism? How can innovation continue while reining in the spiraling costs it generates?
Instead of abolishing private insurance, Terry's model creates a layered system in which basic care groups and insurers each have defined roles, defined budgets, and defined incentives to deliver efficient, high-quality care.
"By budgeting the basic care groups and giving hospitals global budgets," Terry explains, "the model would incentivize healthcare providers to keep costs down — while giving insurance companies a much larger pool of potential health plan members, allowing them to earn sufficient profits to please their investors."
Meeting the Needs of Today's Healthcare Leaders and Policymakers
Beyond Medicare For All is designed for physician leaders and healthcare executives seeking evidence-based policy alternatives, policymakers and advocates working on healthcare financing reform, and informed citizens and healthcare professionals seeking a clear-eyed analysis of what universal, affordable care could look like in practice.
Unlike partisan proposals that require all-or-nothing system overhauls, Terry's model is designed to be implemented incrementally, building on existing infrastructure and market dynamics rather than dismantling them.
About the Author
Ken Terry is a healthcare journalist and author with more than 30 years of experience covering medical practice and the healthcare business. His first book, Rx For Health Care Reform, was published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2007. From 1993 to 2007, Terry served as a senior editor at Medical Economics. Since then, he has been a freelance writer for Medical Economics, Medscape, WebMD, cio.com, Fierce Healthcare, and InformationWeek, among other publications. His previous AAPL title, Physician-Led Healthcare Reform: A New Approach to Medicare For All, was published in 2020.
About the American Association for Physician Leadership
The core philosophy of the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL) is that leadership is learned. AAPL is focused on the personal transformation of all physicians, and through them the organizations they serve. With the goal of improving patient outcomes, workforce wellness, and a refinement of all healthcare delivery, AAPL has remained the only association solely focused on providing professional development, leadership education, and management training exclusively for physicians. Since its founding in 1975, AAPL has empowered more than 300,000 physicians across 35 countries—including CEOs, chief medical officers, and physicians at all levels of healthcare. www.physicianleaders.org
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SOURCE American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL)
