Support for the NJ Health Care Cost Growth Benchmark Program

In December 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed Executive Order 277 which directs the Office of Health Care Affordability and Transparency and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance to launch the state’s health care cost growth benchmarking effort – New Jersey’s Health Care Affordability, Responsibility, and Transparency (HART) Program. The HART Program establishes targets aimed at slowing the rate of health care cost growth within the state and collects data to track progress in achieving those targets and improve overall cost transparency. To advance this work, New Jersey is taking part in the Peterson-Milbank Program for Sustainable Health Care Costs, launched by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Milbank Memorial Fund. The program supports state-led activities that engage cross-sector stakeholders in designing, adopting, and implementing policies to measure health care costs and set state-wide health care cost growth rate benchmarks. Rutgers Center for State Health Policy is providing analytic and strategic guidance in support of the State’s efforts, including offering staff support to inform the convening of an Interagency Health Care Affordability Working Group and an external Health Care Affordability Advisory Group. This project is supported by a grant from the New Jersey Department of Human Services on behalf of the Office of Health Care Affordability and Transparency.