Should the Democrats hang on to the White House in the upcoming presidential election, a fine-tuning of President Obama's Affordable Care Act may well become Hilary Clinton's initial priority.
Although Clinton has shied away from committing to such a policy focus should she be elected, a panel of health care reform experts hosted by Americans United for Change in Philadelphia this week offered compelling reasons for doing just that.
As reported by The Hill, panelists discussed the ACA's essential failure to truly make health insurance affordable to the masses. The structure now exists for affordable care, but the process that will be required to make medical care affordable will be nearly as difficult to create and implement as was the ACA itself.
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"Health care costs, I really see as the next generation of health care reform," says panelist Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress. "Consumers are still feeling that health care costs are out of control. They still feel like premiums are rising, and I do think that is undermining support for the ACA itself."
Not only have insurers been jacking up premiums to offset the losses they claim to incur on the subsidized ACA policies, but they've been forcing consumers to pay more out-of-pocket costs, says Ron Pollack, Families USA president. And that's another issue the Democrats will have to address if they retain the White House.
Panelists included former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Nancy-Ann Deparle, and Chris Jennings, the latter two among the architects of the ACA. Jennings, a senior health policy adviser to Clinton's presidential campaign, noted that Clinton has been committed to a more equitable health care system since she crafted the original health care reform legislation that failed to gain Congressional backing in 1993.
But it remains to be seen if the candidate will choose to push this second round of health care reform to the top of her to-do list — if voters offer her that opportunity.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
