Health Law Advisor

For the last week or so, the health reform public policy debate has been keyed to the Senate HELP Committee’s draft and thus dominated by whether or not the “Exchange” to be employed in access reform should include a “public plan” and, if so, whether such a plan should have the power to access provider payment rates tied to Medicare and whether Medicare participating providers would be required to contract with it. With this week’s release of the Senate Finance Committee’s draft, it will be interesting to see whether payment reform can similarly capture the ...

In yesterday’s post on The Health Care Blog, Bill Kramer remarks upon a key difference in the health reform discourse this go-round. Simply put, “the Obama Administration is changing the debate in a fundamental way.” As President Obama stated in his opening remarks to last week’s White House Forum on Health Reform, “[h]ealthcare reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative.”

Kramer explains that past attempts at reform suffered from political sticker shock over concerns that health reform would dramatically enlarge the federal deficit ...

Thursday's White House Forum on Health Reform brought together people who have a stake in our health care system with people who have the ability to change it. Prior to his inauguration, President Obama called on Americans to hold community discussions about health care. More than 9,000 Americans signed up to host discussions in all 50 states and more than 30,000 Americans attended these discussions. These community groups submitted reports to the White House that detailed their concerns about the health care system and their suggestions for reform. At the Forum, several of these ...

For health care facilities, and those who invest in them or lend to them, the President’s budget underscored the emerging “shape of things to come” in the delivery system. In short, the Administration intends to compel delivery system modifications through aggressive payment policy changes.

What industry segments are immediately concerned? -- home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, IRFs, LTCHs, and rehab facilities. In the name of “efficiency and accountability” the President proposes to bleed (Bleeding Edge redux?) $950M over 5 years and $17.8B over ten ...

Many people ask, “can we afford to pay for health care reform?” However, the more pressing question is whether we can afford not to reform our health care system. The collapse of our financial markets and the general deterioration of the economy make fundamental health reform an urgent priority. Investing in our health care system will pay off by helping to keep Americans healthy and economically stable.

On February 10, 2009, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said that health care reform plans cannot add substantial costs to the system, one which already ...