Innovation centre aims to contain US healthcare costs

The US is hoping to avoid continuously escalating healthcare costs by combining existing and new aspects of government programmes into a new bureaucratic structure called the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.

A packed briefing for congressional staffers on 18 July heard much about how the process might be implemented but there were no silver bullets to slay the fiscal beast.

The Innovation Center was created as part of healthcare reform legislation under the Affordable Care Act. Its goal is to identify, develop, assess, support, and spread new approaches to healthcare finance and delivery that can help improve quality and lower costs.

The $10bn (£6.2bn; $7bn) budget for the period 2011 to 2019 …