What the Reform Law Fails to Reform

This article appears in the August 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

Editor's note: This piece is adapted from Philip Betbeze's June 29 column "CEOs: Now It's Time to Address Affordability." To see columns from his Leadership Corner e-newsletter, visit the Leadership pillar and Archive.

Leading up to the Supreme Court's decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and immediately after, I had not seen such a rush to give an opinion among healthcare stakeholders in years, if ever. Even the original passage of the law in 2010 seems to wither in comparison to the hundreds of emails (exclamation point!) and requests to speak with a reporter from vendors, associations, individual hospitals, physician organizations, and even nonhealthcare-related entities.

They all want their opinion to be heard. That's not surprising in itself, but imagine my surprise when I did talk with a few CEOs immediately leading up to and following the decision: It's not that big of a deal, they said, and it won't make a huge difference in their strategic planning.

As for the period of uncertainty between the announcement that the court would hear the case challenging the law, it's had little impact on long-term strategic planning, says Catholic Health Partners CEO Michael Connelly.