President Obama Urges Congress to Complete Health Care Reform by October
The Facts
President Obama is driving an extremely ambitious effort to achieve comprehensive health reform by October 2009. House and Senate leaders are responding with an aggressive timeline for developing legislation to be on the president’s desk this fall.
Heeding lessons learned from the failed Clinton health reform efforts, the president has until now resisted imposing his views directly on Congress. Now visibly engaged, the president enunciated his policy preferences in a June 2, 2009, letter to Congress:
- A public health insurance option
- A health insurance exchange
- Allowing individuals to keep their current coverage
- Promoting best practices to improve health quality
- Paying for the full cost of health reform (estimated at $1.2 – $1.5 trillion) through a combination of reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending and raising revenue
The president also indicated a willingness to consider individual and employer mandates as well as an enhanced role for the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Click here for a copy of the president’s letter.
Senate Finance Committee senior Republican Charles Grassley (R-IA) and eight of his nine Republican colleagues on the Finance Committee (all but Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine) responded with a joint letter to the president on June 5, 2009, that notes concern with the president’s expression of support for a public plan because a public plan is “one of the more divisive issues in the health care reform debate.” Click here for a copy of the senators’ letter. Clearly, as legislators move from options to concrete legislative proposals, it will be increasingly difficult to keep Republicans at the table in the Senate.
Click here for the tentative timeline for achievement of health reform.
What’s at Stake
Congress and the president are determined to overhaul the nation’s health care delivery system. Every aspect of the health sector will be affected.
Steps to Consider
Providers, insurers, employers, drug and device makers, and every other entity in the health sector should closely examine the legislative proposals, assess their impact, and develop a course of action to maximize the positive impact of health system reform and minimize the negative impact.
