Health reform: What next?

We’ve just elected a president pledged to make quality, affordable health care available to all Americans.  And he’s got a strong Congressional majority to work with.  We’ve also got an economic crisis and the new president has pledged to protect those of us from Main Street USA.  What happens next?

Leadership from both houses of Congress have said they will wait to hear from President Obama about the direction he wants to take and that the proposal the President-elect put forward during his campaign provides a framework for comprehensive reform.  

Fiscal conservatives from both parties suggest health reform will have to wait for a few years at least, that the financial crisis will soak up available federal money and attention.

We don’t agree.  We think the economic meltdown shouldn’t prevent health reform – it should compel it.  A better health system would ease financial pressures on families and on businesses.  That’s why CWA believes health reform is a necessary part of an economic stimulus plan.

And it looks like things could move quickly. Obama is strongly committed, having made health reform a major plank in his campaign.  He spent more than $120 million on campaign ads with a health theme.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee,  has been working since the summer with a bipartisan group, including Obama staff members, to craft a new consensus bill. “The cost will be substantial, but the need for reform is too great to be deflected or delayed,” Kennedy wrote in the Washington Post this week.   

Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicare and Medicaid, has also been working on reform plans.  Baucus said last week his committee would “move swiftly and decisively with legislation in early 2009” for “a comprehensive overhaul of the health care system.”

Obama is likely to approach the reform effort with transparency and broad involvement,  wrote John Iglehart, editor of the respected policy journal Health Affairs. “Obama—reflecting his experience as a community organizer—plans to oversee a far more open process that will enable not only monied interests to weigh in but also people widely representative of the middle class and the dispossessed.”

Iglehart also saw the connection between fixing health care and addressing the financial mess, adding, “Reflecting its campaign success, the Obama administration will continue to tie health-care reform closely to its proposals to repair the tattered economy.”

Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, wrote, “While the challenge is daunting and the stakes are high, it is imperative that our new federal leadership moves swiftly to change direction and put the U.S. health system on the path to high performance.”

Davis added: “Windows of opportunity for real health reform do not stay open for long.”