During a prime-time news conference focused on healthcare reform Wednesday, President Obama spoke about the need to change the healthcare system while decreasing costs and not adding to the national debt.
The 60-minute news conference featured Obama promoting quality healthcare, a public insurance option, and bundled payments, while downplaying potential side effects or tax increases to middle-class Americans to help pay for the reform.
When asked what effect the health reform would have on the American people, Obama said the only change is that it would improve healthcare quality and cut costs. The news conference was a chance for Obama to reach out directly to Americans, but was also an opportunity for healthcare leaders to hear from the president. However, those who hoped for something new were likely disappointed because the president's comments mirrored earlier statements about healthcare.
In response to the news conference, HealthLeaders Media reached out to a number of our trusted sources to ask them for comments about Obama's news conference and healthcare reform. Here is what three of them had to say:
Ted Epperly, MD, FAAFP
President
American Academy of Family Physicians
"The American Academy of Family Physicians agrees with President Barack Obama that the American people cannot wait for health care reform.
"Family physicians see firsthand the fallout from our broken system, as more patients are priced out of health care coverage or lose health insurance and forgo needed healthcare services. Americans need a healthcare system that will allow them to keep their plans if they wish without fear of losing coverage when they become sick or if they change jobs. They need a system that offers affordable coverage and that is available regardless of pre-existing conditions
"Our nation must redesign the way we deliver healthcare so that we pay for quality of care, not the quantity of tests and procedures performed. We must have a healthcare system that fosters the doctor-patient relationship and ensures the preventive care that saves lives and money. Americans want a system in which patients can work with their personal primary care physician who coordinates their care among a team of professionals, especially when they have chronic conditions.
"As President Obama noted, legislation that is being debated by Congress is designed to meet those needs. This legislation will provide peace of mind for the millions of Americans who value the healthcare they have now and to the millions who have no healthcare coverage under the current system.
"Now is the time to reform the system. We urge Congress to invest in the health care system we want and need, not the one we have."
Georganne Chapin
President & CEO
Hudson Health Plan "In bypassing the wrangling and rhetoric about healthcare reform–from the health insurance industry, from the politicians, and from the media–and by speaking directly to the public, President Obama was able to cut through to some very basic, bottom-line issues.
"First, every American is already paying for the overpriced, underperforming healthcare system we have now; this is the reason that average wages have stagnated over the past two decades, and it is only getting worse.
"Second, before succumbing to the fear-mongering objections to government-run public program, we should remember that the current system–with insurers calling the shots based on how much money they stand to make or lose–does not operate in people's best interests.
"Finally, making sure that everyone has access to healthcare is a moral imperative for a country like the United States."
Dee W. Edington, PhD
Director
University of Michigan Health Management Research Center
"I am sure everyone respects the President for even addressing healthcare to a nationwide audience. There were so many topics that one could comment upon, so let me address just one fundamental issue. President Obama talked about how the 'do nothing' strategy is economically unsustainable and he is clearly correct.
"However, what he missed in my opinion is the more fundamental issue of the 'do nothing' American healthcare strategy, which is waiting until people get sick prior to having our healthcare system take notice. The major opportunity for America is to intervene in the current sickness strategy by addressing the systems that lead to sickness and by helping the healthy and high performing people stay healthy.
"In this way, we avoid the high costs while maintaining high levels of performance, which is good for individuals and good for companies and good for American competitiveness throughout the world."
Julius Hobson
Senior policy advisor
Bryan Cave LLP
"It is surprising that the President has been widely criticized for setting deadlines to push Congress for action. Anyone who knows anything about Congress knows that if you want it to move, you have to set deadlines to force action. Congress is not a proactive institution, so pressing it certainly enhances the ultimate enactment of some kind of healthcare reform by the end of the year.
"The President will have to work out compromises within the majority on the Hill to move his healthcare legislation along.
"Another dilemma that the President and the majority face is if legislation does not get through the floor of the House and Senate, you have to consider whether you put out something that hangs out there during the August recess. When Sonia Sotomayor was first nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court, she had approval ratings near 70%. By the time her confirmation hearing started, her approval rating was at 48%. So if you hang out there for a long time, you can take a lot of hits."
Marty Trussell
Senior vice president
First Horizon Msaver
"From watching the press conference last night, I was struck with the vast differences in the way President Obama described his healthcare reform vision and what has come out of Congress so far. I kept saying to myself: 'This sounds good, but it does not square with what Congress has proposed so far.'"
Small businesses–particularly those with 10 employees or fewer—stand to be the big winners if a public health insurance option like the one now before the House of Representatives becomes a reality, according to a new issue brief by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study, Health Care Reform, Big Benefits for Small Businesses estimates that small businesses with 10 or fewer employees could save about $3,500 per worker annually under a public plan similar to the House Tri-Committee's proposal.
Elise Gould, the director of health policy research at EPI, and one of three authors of the issue brief, says the findings shouldn't be surprising. "Small businesses bear a heavy burden in the current failing healthcare system," Gould says. "Small businesses and their employees pay higher prices for less coverage. They are often priced out of the private market completely and, when that happens, it puts them at a great disadvantage when it comes to hiring and retaining employees."
The EPI brief compares the House bill to a similar plan called Health Care for America, which was drafted under EPI's Agenda for Shared Prosperity program. Both the House bill and the EPI plan create a new public insurance option and a requirement that employers offer affordable coverage to their workers or pay to defray the costs of enrolling in a national insurance marketplace.
"The gains to small business are likely to be even greater under the House version of the healthcare reform bill, as it is even more generous to small business," says Josh Bivens, an EPI economist, and a coauthor of the brief.
Employer-sponsored insurance is the primary source of health insurance for non-elderly Americans, covering nearly 63% of adult Americans. ESI premiums of $532 billion in 2008 accounted for nearly one-quarter of all non-Medicare healthcare spending in the United States that year.
However, rising healthcare costs have been particularly tough for small businesses. Small employers hold little bargaining leverage with health insurance companies and have suffered relentless cost hikes that threaten to make health insurance too expensive. The brief notes that the ongoing decline in small business coverage for employees is responsible for much of the erosion in ESI coverage since 2000.
Nearly half of the uninsured worker population is employed by a small business. A Kaiser Family Foundation employer survey last year found that 35% of small businesses offer health insurance to their workers, compared to 99% of large firms with 200 or more workers, and 63% of all firms. The Kaiser survey has also shown that most of the decline in overall ESI offering in recent years has been driven by reduced insurance offering at small firms.
Small firms that do offer health insurance pass on a higher share of the cost of plans to workers; average contributions by workers in small firms are between 30% and 45% higher than in larger firms. Small businesses are paying on average 18% more than larger firms for identical health insurance policies, owing to higher and more variable health risks, a lack of competition among small-group market insurers, greater administrative expenses, and lower wages, according to the issue brief.
President Obama confronted increasing doubts about the impact of widespread changes to the healthcare system during a prime-time news conference. Obama sought to assure middle-class Americans that the landmark legislation he envisions would improve their quality of life and is essential to curing the nation's economic ills. The president vowed that healthcare reform would drive down costs, eventually saving families thousands of dollars. But he struggled to explain how any of the measures under consideration would fulfill that promise, according to the Washington Post.
President Obama provided intricate details of health policy at his news conference, but experts said some of his points were debatable. Obama said doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug companies, and AARP had supported efforts to overhaul healthcare, for example. But while it is true the American Medical Association has endorsed a bill drafted by House Democratic leaders, a half-dozen state medical societies have sharply criticized provisions that would establish a new government-run health insurance plan.
The University of Chicago Medical Center is forging ahead with a major financing plan to pay for a large part of its new hospital pavilion despite a turbulent economy that has triggered layoffs and spending reductions at the facility this year. The medical center plans to issue bonds to raise $225 million through the Illinois Finance Authority to support the university's capital projects, "highlighted by the construction of a new patient tower pavilion on the main campus," according to a report released by Moody's Investors Service.
Denis Cortese, CEO of Mayo Clinic, says the healthcare bill unveiled in the House of Representatives misses a key opportunity to change the way Medicare pays for healthcare. Cortese argued adding a new public plan that covers more people and pays for care the same way as Medicare won't work, because the rapid rise in health costs will continue. “A Medicare model is a catastrophe,” Cortese told the Wall Street Journal Health Blog.
A new organization of doctors wants to roll back policies curbing interactions between doctors and drug company representatives, saying restrictive rules ultimately will hurt the patients they're designed to protect. The group, called the Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators, plans to promote "productive collaboration" between industry and physicians, which they say leads to better medicines and treatments.
In July 2009, Martin Memorial Medical Center in South Florida chartered a private plane and sent 37-year-old Luis Jimenez back to Guatemala without telling his relatives in the U.S. or Guatemala, even as his legal guardian sought to stop the move. Now the man's guardian, also his cousin, is suing the hospital for essentially deporting Jimenez, who was an illegal immigrant. The hospital, which spent more than $1.5 million on his care over three years, says Jimenez wanted to go home. Now the president of the South Florida Hospital & Healthcare Association says hospitals may become even more wary about providing extended care to uninsured immigrants as a result of the case.
Texas Health Resources Inc., the largest hospital system in North Texas, has formed a temp agency with an Arlington-based medical staffing company to both save money and fix its nursing shortage. The joint venture with Medfinders Inc., operating as Texas Health SingleSource Staffing, will oversee the staffing of all per-diem nurses for Texas Health's 14 hospitals across North Texas. By having an in-house agency, Texas Health is better able to fill its 5% nurse vacancy rate and avoid costly overtime by paying temporary nurses to cover shifts of full-time nurses, said system representatives.
A Chicago-based specialty hospital for brain, spine, and orthopedic surgeries may relocate to the northern suburbs under a deal under discussion with hospital operator NorthShore University Health System. The Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago confirmed it is in talks with NorthShore University Health System. Current plans under discussion would have procedures currently done at the existing facility moved to Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview and Skokie Hospital in Skokie.
