Value-Based Purchasing in Healthcare: How the US Government isSecuring Quality Improvement in Care in the United States

Abstract

Governments have a responsibility to be good stewards of public funds. In the US health care spending accounts for 17.4% of GDP and totalled $2.9 trillion in 2013. Over the last fifty years the US government has become one of the nation’s largest health insurers through sponsorship of programs for elderly and low-income, disabled people. The primary program, Medicare, is run by the Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) within the Department of Health and Human Services. CMS currently funds over a third of the services in the US and insures over 100 million people