mercredi 27 juillet 2016

DNC: Room for Collaboration on Health Policy, Speakers Say

PHILADELPHIA -- Although there is currently a deep partisan divide on Capitol Hill, there is much room for cooperation in Congress when it comes to healthcare issues, several speakers said here Wednesday.

"It may be a little counterintuitive, but I think there are some real possibilities here," especially if Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is elected, said former senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), co-founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, at a healthcare briefing sponsored by The Washington Post in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention. "I could give you names of several Republicans who would say, 'Hillary and I could work together.'"

Nancy-Ann DeParle, former administrator under President Bill Clinton of what is now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, agreed. "There are some opportunities to work together," she said, adding that some Republican governors who haven't yet expanded their Medicaid programs -- as encouraged under the Affordable Care Act -- may find it easier to do so once President Obama is no longer in office.

Ann O'Leary, a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign, noted that many people thought that Republican governors would never expand Medicaid at all, "but look at Mike Pence," she said, referring to the Indiana governor who is now the Republican vice presidential nominee. "He expanded Medicaid in Indiana -- and made a real difference."

One area where progress needs to be made is in keeping the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges viable, the panelists agreed. "There are now over 400 counties where only one insurance plan is offered," O'Leary said; she suggested that one way to infuse competition in such markets would be to offer a "public option" in which people could buy into a government-run insurance plan.

New payment models would also help, according to Daschle. "If we make market viability a real goal, we have to make risk-sharing a real goal," he said. "It would do wonders to create a [more competitive] kind of environment."

Opportunities for collaboration in health insurance regulation are definitely there, said Dan Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, in Philadelphia. "On both sides of the aisle there are very constructive ideas, if you get the right critical mass of people sitting across the table -- that balancing between government oversight, which is very important in regulation and competition, with some of these private market things progressive Republicans are talking about, we can really make some progress."

Wondering why MedPage Today covers politics? See this explanation from Editor-in-Chief Peggy Peck.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

DNC: Room for Collaboration on Health Policy, Speakers Say

Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire