“Consumer and business groups are speaking out in favor of California legislation to create an agency dedicated to cutting health-care costs.

Bill Barcellona, executive vice president of government affairs for America’s Physician Groups [and a Signatory of the Convergence California Health Reform Initiative report, “A New California Government Entity to Address Health Care Costs & Affordability Report And Recommendation from the California Health Reform Initiative”], said experts are needed to ferret out where, how and why the marketplace is failing patients.

‘You have to have someone at the top of the system looking at the data, finding the gaps and driving innovation,’ said Barcellona. “And on the negative side, driving compliance.”‘

Assembly Bill 1130 from Assemblymember Jim Wood – D-Santa Rosa – would establish a State Office of Health Care Affordability. The agency would have the power to set cost targets for health plans, hospitals and more – and to enforce them.”