The 1% Steps for Health Care Reform Project is bringing together leading academics to identify discrete problems in the U.S. health system and offer evidence-based steps to address them. A project of the Health Care Affordability Lab at Yale, directed by Professor Zack Cooper, the goal of the 1% Steps Project is to offer a menu of tangible steps that policy makers can take to lower health care costs in the U.S.
The project is driven by the belief that there is not one thing wrong in the U.S. health system, but rather that differentially high health care spending in the U.S. is the result of a series of discrete problems that can and must be addressed, one by one. We believe that relying on evidence-based policies to address these individual problems is the most effective way to make our health system more efficient and that academics should offer concrete steps, based on their research, that policy makers can use to lower health care costs without harming quality. This is not a static project. We will be continuing to work with leading scholars to identify inefficiencies and put forward specific policies that can lower U.S. health care spending.