Preventive Care, Deductibles Work at Cross Purposes

For years, leading health experts have said the way to improve healthcare quality and lower its cost is to emphasize prevention over treatment and encourage closer coordination among medical providers caring for a patient.

Those goals are at the core of the Affordable Care Act, which aims to push medical delivery in that direction.

But there’s a counter trend threatening to undermine that vision, according to an article published March 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine: A rapid move toward health plans that impose a larger share of the cost on enrollees, most notably through high deductibles and copayments.