The Center for Healthcare Decisions is launching this multi-year initiative
in its work towards attaining affordable, quality healthcare.

The Problem
Rising healthcare spending is unsustainable, yet cost control is a political landmine. While innovations in care delivery and payment methods may help improve the quality of care and perhaps slow medical inflation, they may not be sufficient to counter the magnitude of the spending problem we face. Yet efforts to address this problem without an informed public voice are unlikely to succeed.

The Approach
Common Cents is rooted in public deliberation — asking the citizenry to recognize the larger societal issues raised by rapidly rising healthcare costs.  Nonpartisan interactive processes are grounded in accurate information, opportunities to hear the views of others and problem-solving that addresses the tensions between competing values and priorities.

With Common Cents, the Center for Healthcare Decisions and its partners will:

1. Develop and conduct public deliberative sessions on strategies for controlling costs.
2. Invite local, state and national businesses, organizations and agencies to sponsor Common Cents projects with their constituents.
3. Explore new ways to help citizens assess and use information about healthcare interventions.
4. Use the results of Common Cents projects to inform policy makers. 

Common Cents projects

Value-based Insurance Design (V-BID)
CHCD in June 2012 completed a pilot project, Probing the public's views on V-BID, with partners in Michigan to see how average employees consider the pros and cons of using value-based insurance design as a tool for encouraging high-value health care and discouraging low-value health care.

Common Cents partners
The following organizations are working with CHCD to help launch and implement Common Cents: