Authored by Wendy Barnes via RealClearPolitics,
As candidates spend the coming months telling voters how they would transform American health care, they should not overlook reforms that could make care more accessible and affordable without requiring complex new government programs.
Millions of Americans are already trying to make their health care dollars go further. They compare prices, explore alternatives to insurance, and choose lower-cost ways to obtain prescriptions and routine care. Yet federal policies often penalize them for doing exactly what policymakers say they want consumers to do: shop carefully and choose the best value option.
A practical health care affordability agenda should begin with a simple principle: When Americans use their own money to pay for legitimate health care, government rules should help that money go further.
Policymakers can put that principle into practice in two ways.
First, consumers should receive credit for the money they actually spend on prescriptions.
Consider a consumer whose insurance requires an $80 out-of-pocket payment for a prescription. That same drug may be available for $30 through a cash-pay option. Choosing the $30 price should be an easy decision.
But under many health plans, that spending may not count toward the consumer's deductible or annual out-of-pocket maximum because the prescription was purchased outside of traditional insurance. The consumer saves $50 at the pharmacy counter but forfeits credit for the $30 spent.
That is not how a system designed to encourage
