The State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program announces the release of a new report, “State Implementation of National Health Reform: Harnessing Federal Resources to Meet State Policy Goals,” prepared by Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute. The report identifies and documents policy options in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that could be important to accomplishing longstanding state objectives. The author takes what can seem like a confusing and intimidating mass of health policy detail and organizes it into understandable policy directions that orient state officials and stakeholders to help chart a path forward. Rather than itemize the full range of decisions and actions that the law expects of states, this paper synthesizes the details of federal reform into several broad themes:

• Maximizing residents’ health coverage and access to care;
• Helping health care and coverage function more like a traditional, healthy market;
• Holding insurers accountable for providing high-quality coverage at reasonable cost to the consumer;
• Reforming the health care delivery system to slow cost growth while improving quality; and
• Limiting state general fund spending on health care.

Stan Dorn will be a featured speaker at the SCI Annual Meeting in Minneapolis next week.

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