The Alliance for Health Reform and the Commonwealth Fund co-sponsored this briefing to examine the quasi-governmental authorities that Germany, the Netherlands and France have established to control health care costs, oversee quality, and regulate insurance and provider payment.

How and why have these quasi-governmental authorities come into being? What is their scope of power, and the mechanism they provide for bringing stakeholders together in health care decision making? What are the respective roles of government and the private market? How successful are these entities in achieving their purposes? How useful are lessons from abroad to our efforts to improve efficiency and quality of health care in the United States?