[vsr_pg]

With all due respect, the premise of this comment--that consumers reduce costs by "shopping around" and being cost conscious--is being misrepresented. The plan type I believe you are referring to is a high-deductible health plan. HDHPs have a little success at reducing costs, but mostly at the expense of compromising quality of care. They can be a part of the solution, but they are not "the" solution as you put it.

“Most Americans in HDHPs are not doing things that can help them get the care they need at the lowest possible cost, and even those who are doing so could realize more benefits,” says lead author Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., an assistant professor of general medicine at U-M. (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...)

"Research published last year in the American Journal of Managed Care showed that switching to a consumer-directed health plan—an HDHP paired with a health savings account—did, in fact, result in lower outpatient spending. But the researchers, led by Neeraj Sood, vice dean and professor at USC’s Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, found no change in spending on 26 commonly used, low-value services." (https://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/2018/6/hdhps-cost-sh...)

"Current evidence suggests that HDHPs are associated with lower health care costs as a result of a reduction in the use of health services, including appropriate services" (https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0...)

[icebraining]

The proposal seems to be for an HDHP with an employer-funded HSA, which would remove the inventive to save that money for non-healthcare-related expenses. It's not clear to me that those studies are valid for that particular model.