13 Health Leaders Respond to Obama's State of the Union Address

Cheryl Clark, for HealthLeaders Media, January 28, 2010

Richard Kirsch
National Campaign Manager
Health Care for America Now
"President Obama laid to rest tonight any doubt that he intends to keep working to get healthcare reform done. Now it's up to Congress to finish the job it started and finish it right. Congress cannot allow the insurance industry's greed and political scare tactics to stand in the way of delivering on the promise of health security to every American now."

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David B. Kendall
Senior Fellow for Health and Fiscal Policy
Third Way
"The President's State of the Union address shifted the momentum in the healthcare debate back toward passing reform. President Obama didn't walk away from the challenge of passing controversial policies. Instead, he made reform more important than ever to the success of his agenda. Without reform, the middle class will have less money to spend on college for their children, more anxiety about losing their coverage, and greater healthcare costs in retirement.

"Healthcare reform is now linked to another key feature of the President's agenda: fiscal reform. Healthcare reform will create a platform for restraining healthcare costs that are driving up entitlement spending.

"In short, he has given Congress the impetus it needs to complete its work to give healthcare stability and security to all Americans."

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Gary Zegiestowsky
Chief Executive Officer
Informatics Corporation of America
"I believe the President's goal to provide healthcare coverage to all Americans while reducing the record high costs of healthcare will continue to be a key driver for the broader use and adoption of healthcare information technology.

"This builds on the premise that healthcare technology can provide efficiencies in care delivery while improving the overall health of each patient. I believe the continued evolution of a community-based model of care will be a critical success factor in achieving the President's goals for healthcare.

"This model will need to revolve around a patient-centric approach across the range of treatment settings that aligns care providers as a team to truly improve the health of the American population in a cost-effective manner."

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Maria Robles RN
President
Californians for Patient Care
"Even though the President's message was clear that healthcare reform will no longer be his number one domestic priority, it was encouraging to hear Mr. Obama will not walk away from the most sweeping healthcare legislation since the enactment of Medicare."

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Stan Nowak
CEO and co-founder
Silverlink Communications
"It was surprising that healthcare reform, one of the President's top domestic priorities, was only a small portion of last night's 70-minute State of the Union speech. There were no new healthcare reform ideas introduced in his address and there was little to indicate that there will be new approaches to reform in the coming months. This leads us to question: Will meaningful reform happen before the next election cycle?

"With or without reform, it is clear that the health insurance industry is undergoing change. The President mentioned two important yet underserved segments in today's healthcare market—small business and the uninsured. Even without imminent reform, I believe we will start to see a new wave of innovative products that directly address these underserved segments."