Often, I refer to the health care reform bill that President Obama signed into law in March of 2010 as “the Affordable Care Act” or ACA. Friday, as I read the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) report on the “Essential Health Benefits” (EHB) that private insurers will be required to cover under reform, I resolved never to make that mistake again.
A new group that calls itself “Partnership for America” has announced that it will be spending $3 mllion on a campaign to “freeze, investigate and replace’” the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The “Partnership” didn’t come up with this idea on its own. It is backing a bill introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) that would freeze implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act until its full impact can be investigated. Johnson introduced the “Freeze and Investigate Affordable Care Act” (H.R. 3095) on Wednesday. If enacted, the Act would immediately suspend implementation of President Obama’s health care law and require Congress and the President to appoint aAffordable Care Evaluation Commission to study the measure’s impact on patient care, the economy and private-sector job creation.
Not a few politicians and pundits continue to believe that free market competition offers the best solution to creating a health care system that offers good value for our health care dollars. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, for one, argues that if we just give every American a tax credit, and let each person shop for his or her own insurance, consumers would pick the insurance network that offered the best care at the lowest price.
Should private citizens be allowed to sue their state Medicaid programs for imposing rate cuts on doctors and other providers? That’s the question the Supreme Court is currently considering in Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, a case that pits California’s Medicaid program against providers and beneficiaries who charge that rate cuts force so many doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and other health care providers to drop out of the program that the poor, elderly and disabled no longer have adequate access to necessary medical care.
From time to time, I cross-post a piece from Pulse: Voices From the Heart of Medicine, an online magazine that uses stories and poems written by patients and health care professionals to talk honestly about giving and receiving medical care.