This newly-updated issue guide about health care costs is available as a FREE, downloadable pdf. The 28-page issue guide presents three options for deliberation. A 4-minute overview video is also available to stream online at no cost. Post-forum questionnaires can be downloaded for forum participants to complete for return to be included in research and reporting.

Click here to view and download the issue materials.

The following is excerpted from the issue guide materials:

High health-care costs affect all Americans, often in deeply personal ways. This guide is designed to help people deliberate together about how we should approach the issue. It suggests three options for deliberation, along with the trade-offs each might involve. Each option presents advantages as well as downsides. Each raises questions for which there are no easy answers.

• If we create a single government program to pay for everyone’s health care, would taxes rise and quality suffer?

• Can gradual reforms hold costs down and still get everybody covered?

• Should we take responsibility for our own choices in a more transparent and competitive marketplace even if that means those who make poor decisions will suffer the consequences?

Improving the US health-care system routinely presents choices between holding the line on enormous costs, covering more people, and maintaining the choices and quality of care Americans deserve. Which should be our priority?