Posts Tagged ‘American Medical Association’
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will save Medicare $120 billion over the next five years as a result of lower payments to insurers and hospitals. According to the Obama administration additional steps to cut fraud and abuse are providing promising results. Medicare Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum said that the healthcare overhaul is working, resulting in real savings and making program more efficient. Payment reforms are improving quality, performance and slashing costs. When President Barak Obama signed the healthcare bill, one major goal was to cut spending on Medicare.
“Just a year after passage, we are seeing savings in Medicare begin to materialize from provisions in the Affordable Care Act,” said Donald Berwick, M.D., administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). “This work is laying the groundwork for a larger transformation of Medicare and our healthcare delivery system, from simply paying for the volume of services provided to rewarding the quality of care delivered. We remain committed to achieving a healthcare system that pursues better care, better health, and lower cost through improvement.”
In addition to the projected savings, Medicare is on track to improve the quality of care members receive. CMS has implemented quality improvements and delivery system efficiencies including providing new preventive benefits, tying payment to quality standards, investing in patient safety and offering new incentives to providers who deliver high-quality, coordinated care. “These actions will produce savings, create incentives for greater efficiency in care delivery and lay the groundwork for a long-term transformation of our healthcare system as well to make it safer and prevent injuries and unnecessary readmissions to hospitals which not only harm patients but increase overall healthcare costs,” according to a CMS analysis.
Cutting Medicare spending was a priority of the healthcare overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010. The law is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to reduce deficits by $143 billion, partly through almost $500 billion in cuts and savings from the Medicare program over a 10-year period. Blum said the savings are in line with expectations by the Obama administration. “We’re very much consistent with where we thought we would be,” he said.
The savings come at a cost, of course. Cuts in physician reimbursement represent a 31 percent reduction. If the cuts are adjusted for practice-cost inflation, the American Medical Association says Medicare payment rates to physicians in 2013 will total less than half of what they were in 1991. “If we can’t fix this, the impact on physicians and physician practices is going to be devastating,” said Alan C. Woodward, M.D., Massachusetts Medical Society president. “Many practices are barely surviving now. Coupled with the ongoing problem of soaring professional liability costs, Medicare reimbursement is a critical issue for physician-practice viability,” Dr. Woodward said. “Failure to solve the Medicare problem will only further endanger older patients’ access to needed healthcare services.”
Writing on the White House Blog, Deputy Chief of Staff and healthcare czar Nancy-Ann DeParle says that “Many of these reforms were made possible by the Affordable Care Act. The new law rewards doctors and hospitals for providing high-quality care and offers new tools to help law enforcement and the Medicare program crack down on waste, fraud and abuse. Other steps like improving care for patients with disabilities and bringing down the cost of durable medical equipment build on initiatives undertaken at CMS that will also reduce costs. And we recently announced the launch of the Partnership for Patients, a new public-private partnership that will help improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all Americans. Already, more than 3,000 organizations, including 1,500 hospitals, have signed a pledge to become part of the Partnership for Patients. This has the potential to save up to $10 billion for Medicare through 2013.”
Tags: American Medical Association, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Congressional Budget Office, deficit, Dr Donald Berwick, Healthcare czar, Medicare, Nancy-Ann DeParle, Obama administration, Partnership for Patients, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, White House blog
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Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
Is the healthcare insurance industry the scapegoat for rising premiums? In the inaugural episode of the Chuck Lauer Show, presented by Alter+Care, the former publisher of Modern Healthcare Magazine talked about the insurance industry’s take on healthcare reform with Ben Cutler, Chairman and CEO of USHEALTH Group, Inc., who previously led Fortis Healthcare. Cutler currently serves on AHIP’s Executive Committee, serves on AHIP’s Board and is also the Chairman of AHIP’s Membership Committee. The Chuck Lauer Show is an ongoing conversation about the future of healthcare with the leaders and thinkers who are shaping a new direction for healthcare in the United States.
Cutler, who has spent more than 30 years in the healthcare insurance industry, recalled the ongoing national debate that began nearly 20 years over HillaryCare with the objective of how to provide universal coverage for the more than 50 million uninsured Americans. Cutler believes that the Obama administration has chosen to focus on access and doesn’t sufficiently address affordability issues. Healthcare industry groups recognized that the day would come when reform would be a top-line issue and that we would not be well served by just saying “no”. Cutler says “We’ve worked hard on positioning the industry to accommodate reforms and tried to be very accommodating because getting more people covered is a laudable objective.”
As the healthcare reform bill was drafted, it soon became clear that the insurance industry would have a problem with some of the issues. Unfortunately, according to Cutler, the politicians decided they needed an enemy and “that turned out to be us. We continue to be vilified as an industry”, a situation that could – and should — have been avoided. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have some unintended consequences in terms of how the legislation will affect the behavior of various stakeholders who comprise the healthcare economy – consumers, providers, insurers, regulators, etc. It is inevitable that the insurance industry will have to raise rates if they are to comply with the healthcare law, which essentially constitutes a new tax on the American people.
Cutler cites the example of the $5 billion set aside to subsidize people in high-risk pools. The government estimated that by this time, upwards of 500,000 individuals would be enrolled in these pools. So far, just 8,000 people have signed up, an example of where government expectations were totally unrealistic. Additionally, there is the issue of pre-existing conditions, which the government has characterized as an industry-abusive position, and one which relates to affordability of coverage. According to Cutler, if people buy homeowners’ insurance only after their house catches fire, the premium obviously would be higher.
Ben Cutler: An Insurance Industry CEO Responds to Healthcare Reform:
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Tags: Affordability, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, Ben Cutler, Chuck Lauer, Congress, Fortis Healthcare, healthcare industry, healthcare reform, high-risk pools, Hillarycare, House of Representatives, Inc, insurance companies, Kathleen Sebelius, Lasik surgery, Modern Healthcare Magazine, Nancy-Ann De Parle, Obama administration, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Perfect storm, pre-existing conditions, Senate, universal coverage, USHEALTH Group
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Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
In a move that builds on the healthcare reforms contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – and one that will make physicians very happy — President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget includes $250 million in grants over the next three years to subsidize efforts to help the states overhaul their medical liability laws. If the budget passes, the grants will be administered by the Justice Department in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As much as $100 million will be disbursed in fiscal 2012, with $50 million in each of the succeeding three years. According to the Justice Department’s budget outline, the grants will fuel reforms that “fairly compensate patients who are harmed by negligence, reduce providers’ insurance premiums, weed out frivolous lawsuits, improve the quality of healthcare, and reduce medical costs associated with defensive medicine.” The grants build upon $25 million in grants HHS awarded last June through the Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality safety and medical liability demonstration projects by states and health systems.
“I think the president is very serious about following up on this,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose agency would advise the Justice Department on awarding the grants, told the Senate Finance Committee. Specific reforms might exclude caps on jury awards that the American Medical Association and Republican lawmakers have wanted for years. At the same time, they include measures unacceptable to trial lawyers, a group that contributes heavily to Democratic candidates.
Philip K. Howard, chairman of Common Good, described the budget item as “A very significant moment for controlling healthcare costs.” Based in New York, Common Good has taken the lead in supporting special courts in which judges with healthcare backgrounds would resolve medical liability cases. “With this budget item, President Obama is moving beyond bipartisanship and, in effect, saying that the country can no longer afford the rising healthcare costs that defensive medicine unnecessarily fuels,” Howard said. President Obama also called for tort reform legislation in his 2011 State of the Union address.
The cost of defensive medicine to American healthcare consumers is not easy to estimate. Conservative estimates place the cost at approximately $50 billion a year. The Obama debt commission estimated that its recommendations could save government programs $17 billion through 2020, calling for an aggressive effort to rewrite malpractice laws.
Gibson Vance, president of the American Association for Justice, described the proposal as “bad policy and bad for patients.” The president’s proposal also got a chilly reception from congressional Republicans, who contend that he has promised more on malpractice than he has been able to deliver. Obama initially voiced an interest in the issue during the lengthy healthcare reform debate. He has opposed another malpractice alternative: capping the amount a patient can receive in a medical liability case. This alternative is favored by many physicians and Republicans, but opposed by the majority of Democrats.
“These grants will help states reform their laws to pursue innovative approaches that will improve the quality of healthcare, fairly compensate patients who are harmed by negligence, reduce medical costs and liability, and protect patient safety,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.
Tags: 2012 budget, Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality, American Association for Justice, American Medical Association, Bipartisanship, Common Good, Defensive medicine, Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, Frivolous lawsuits, House of Representatives, Kathleen Sebelius, Medical liability laws, medical malpractice, Obama debt commission, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Senate Finance Committee, State of the Union Address, tort reform
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Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
As Baby Boomers celebrate their 65th birthdays at the rate of one every eight seconds, the nation’s physician shortage is growing. “This is not a surprise, of course, but I hope that the oft-repeated statistic will force our nation and our government to face the harsh reality of America’s current physician shortage, our growing underserved populations, and the dismal issue of access for those newly insured after 2014 under provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” said Cecil B. Wilson, M.D., and president of the American Medical Association (AMA).
According to Wilson, the AMA anticipates that the nation will be short by at least 125,000 physicians by 2025. This year, 22 states and 17 medical specialty organizations are reporting dwindling numbers of practitioners. Many physicians have so many patients that they have to limit the number of Medicare enrollees they can see because reimbursement rates are not high enough to make a profit. “For decades, we have watched the physician population move into cities and high-population areas, leaving vast areas of this country woefully underserved,” Dr. Wilson said. “There still is a primary-care shortage — at least partially because pay differentials for primary-care physicians make it even more difficult to repay medical school debts, which average $155,000. We see an even larger shortage in the Hispanic, black and other minority communities — partly because of high medical school costs but also because there are few role models for those kids. And then there is 2014, the year of shrinking access. That year, when the full provisions of the health reform law kick in, we will see 32 million more patients — people who up to now have been uninsured and often without a physician.”
Complicating the situation is the fact that the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that as many as 33 percent of physicians practicing today will retire over the next 10 years.
The outlook for primary-care physicians is especially grim, according to the Association of American Colleges (AAMC). The AAMC estimates that the nation will need an estimated 45,000 primary-care physicians and 46,000 surgeons and medical specialists once the new healthcare law is fully implemented. “It’s certainly the worst (shortage) that we’ll have seen in the last 30 years,” said AAMC chief advocacy officer Atul Grover. “For the first time since the 1930s, our number (of physicians) per capita will start to drop in the next couple of years. That’s fewer doctors per person, but at the same time, since people are aging and have more chronic illnesses, each person is going to need more healthcare. That’s a pretty bad situation.”
At present, the United States has 709,700 physicians (in all specialties) with a demand for 723,400 – that’s a shortfall of 13,700 doctors. By comparison, in 2020, there will be 759,800 physicians (in all specialties) with a need for 851,300 physicians; essentially that represents 91,500 too few doctors. Once healthcare reform kicks in, 32 million more Americans will have access to medical insurance and 36 million to Medicare. “As more people get insured, they are going to seek out the care they probably should have been getting all along but haven’t been able to necessarily access. That’s why those numbers look worse in the next 10 years than we previously had estimated,” Grover said.
Peter J. Weiss, M.D., respectfully disagrees. In fact, he thinks that the physician shortage is all in the AMA’s Dr. Wilson’s head. “It’s simple, when the doctor supply goes up — the amount of care, and the profits, rise too,” according to Weiss. “I’m not blaming physicians for this problem, the causes of inappropriate care are complex, but if we just got rid of unnecessary care, would we have a ‘physician shortage?’ Lastly, historically doctors have acted aggressively to protect their turf - both as a profession and within specialties. How much routine healthcare could be rendered by nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and other more numerous and less costly providers? Studies suggest that a huge fraction of care doesn’t need to be rendered by a doctor, but what prevents this? You know the answer — the physician lobby.”
Tags: American Medical Association, Association of American Colleges, Atul Grover, baby boomers, M.D., Medical school debt, Medicare, nurse practitioners, nurses, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Peter J. Weiss, Pharmacists, physician shortage, primary-care physicians, Reimbursement rates, Specialists, Underserved populations, Unnecessary care
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Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
With Democrats in control of the Senate and Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, a battle royal is shaping up on Capitol Hill over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – aka the healthcare reform law. The house has already passed a bill that symbolically repeals the law, and each chamber is holding hearings – the Senate Democrats to sing the praises of healthcare reform and the House Republicans to point out what is wrong with it. Named “Repealing The Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”, the legislation passed the House and is expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate. “The ‘job killing’ charge is ‘demonstrably ridiculous’: The GOP’s ‘farcical’ claim that healthcare reform will cause job losses is ‘transparently false,’” according to Steve Benen, writing in a Washington Monthly article.
Although polls show little change in Americans’ understanding of the law, Democrats see the GOP-driven debate as giving them another opportunity to tout the bill’s benefits. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research, says that strategy could be particularly effective with women, a critical voting group. “They’re the healthcare voters and the healthcare decision makers,” she said. Lake warns that Democrats need to shift the dialogue from how the law impacts the federal budget to stories about real people and how the new law has helped them. “You win women back by telling them that if their kids have asthma and it’s a pre-existing condition, they won’t be covered anymore,” she said. The law’s symbolic repeal, according to Lake, is “the first sign of tension that Republicans face of how do you keep the tea party base and still appeal to independent women who were the key swing voters in 2010 and will be again in 2012.”
President Barack Obama suggested in his State of the Union speech that he is open to fixing some parts of the Affordable Care Act. “President Obama outlined a vision for our nation’s future that includes key American Medical Association priorities, such as lowering healthcare costs through medical liability reform, improvements to the new health reform law and investments in biomedical research,” said AMA president Dr. Cecil Wilson. Additionally, Wilson is pleased that the president acknowledged that certain improvements should be made, such as eliminating the 1099 filing requirement that requires businesses to file a form with the Internal Revenue Service for every vendor with which they have had at least $600 in transactions. The president stressed that he will not turn back the clock completely. “What I’m not willing to do…is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition,” he said.
One group that is applauding the symbolic repeal of the healthcare law is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and has pledged to fight government regulations that it believes will challenge American competitiveness.
In the recent “State of American Business”, Chamber president Thomas Donahue said “Workers who have been banking on employer-based coverage when they retire are being told not to count on it. And as premiums rise, thanks in part to the law’s new mandates, many companies are thinking about ending their employer-based plans, and moving workers into government-run exchanges. By mid-December, HHS had already granted 222 waivers to the law—a revealing acknowledgement that the law is unworkable. And, with key provisions under challenge in the courts by states and others, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.”
Tags: "Repealing The Job-Killing Health Care Law Act", 1099 filing requirement, American Medical Association, Biomedical research, Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, Government regulations, healthcare reform law, House of Representatives, Internal Revenue Service, Lake Research, Medical liability reform, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama, repeal, Republicans, Senate, State of the Union speech, Steve Benen, Tea Party, U. S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington Monthly
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Monday, December 6th, 2010
Even though Republicans will control the House of Representatives and have a larger presence in the Senate come January, they still are likely to hit some formidable roadblocks in their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. Those roadblocks are such lobbying giants as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PRMA). The groups are on board with the new healthcare reform law because they will gain an estimated 30 million (or more) new paying customers in the next few years. The reform law is expected to increase payments to physicians and hospitals who have felt squeezed in recent years. Additionally, analysts believe the new law is a major force for job creation in the healthcare sector.
“These guys were onboard for a reason,” said David Dranove, a professor of health enterprise management at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Very few employers will drop private health insurance, and you will expand private insurance to 15 million people. If this legislation stands, we are not likely to see new reforms for a generation.”
Primary-care physicians, who are likely to benefit significantly from the healthcare reform law, will see their reimbursements from government insurance programs rise – although many believe the reform law is only the beginning. According to Dr. Cecil Wilson, AMA president, “While the 111th Congress made important improvements to our nation’s healthcare system, more work needs to be done.” Hospitals – which have been hard hit by patients unable to pay their medical bills because of unemployment – will be in better financial shape once more Americans get health insurance subsidies in 2014.
Pharmaceutical companies, which were among reform’s earliest supporters, oppose repeal, even though analysts say it will cost them $100 billion in government rebates. The upside is that the industry will obtain new customers who were previously uninsured and unable to afford the latest brand-name medications. Even the much-maligned insurance companies – who will have more than 15 million new customers – oppose repeal.
Tags: 111th Congress, Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, GOP, Health insurers, healthcare reform law, House of Representatives, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, President Barack Obama, primary-care physicians, private insurance, Republicans, Senate
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Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
The Senate is on the verge of passing emergency legislation to postpone the 25 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements until January 1, 2011, according to leaders on the Senate Finance Committee. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) said “Working together, this agreement makes certain that seniors and military families can be confident they will be able to see a doctor and get the medicines they need. It is our hope the Senate will pass this package as soon as possible to give doctors, seniors and military families the care and the certainty they deserve.” The House of Representatives next must pass the bill and send it to President Obama for his signature by December 1. According to the Senators’ statement, the extra funds required to extend the cut will come from the Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010.
“Once signed into law by the President, it will mean that seniors and military families are spared the threat of a lapse in care. The next step is moving onto finding a yearlong extension before this fix runs out,” according to Baucus
The American Medical Association (AMA) and other physician groups applauded the Senate’s action. “The Senate’s action to stop the Medicare cut for one month will help avert a healthcare crisis for seniors that would have begun in just two weeks,” said Cecil Wilson, M.D., the AMA’s president. “This is a short-term reprieve and the AMA is urging Congress to pass a one-year fix. Delaying the 25 percent cut to the end of 2011 will inject some stability into the Medicare program for patients and physicians and provide lawmakers with time to develop a long-term solution to the broken physician payment system.”
Tags: American Medical Association, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Congress, House of Representatives, Medicare, Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010, President Barack Obama, Senate, Senate Finance Committee, Senator Charles Grassley, Senator Max Baucus, SGR, Sustainable Growth Rate formula, Tricare
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Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
The healthcare system in the United States significantly under performs every other industrialized nation, with the result that too many Americans either die or are harmed every year. This is the opinion of Louise Probst, Executive Director of the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition. Writing for the Commonwealth Fund, Probst says that “Since the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) executive summary to its landmark report To Err is Human was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the IOM estimate that up to 30 percent of all healthcare expenditures pay for care with little or no health benefit fails to shock. Experts now predict that 40 percent or more of all spending has little or no benefit. Meanwhile, the average cost of health insurance for a family of four has grown to more than $14,000 annually.” The Commonwealth Fund promotes a high-performing healthcare system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable — low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children and the elderly.
According to Probst, “High healthcare costs create significant suffering for American families, businesses and governments. Other leading nations spend half of what we do on healthcare, making it increasingly difficult for families to retain their standard of living and for American businesses to compete in a global economy.” Each and every American pays the nation’s healthcare tab indirectly through smaller paychecks, higher taxes and health benefit costs hidden in the price of non-healthcare goods. Compounding the situation is the fact that the jobs that the nation needs to make up for these costs are being outsourced to nations where healthcare is cheaper. “The outcome is soberly clear: In 2009, one of even seven Americans lived in poverty and 50 million Americans were uninsured, according to the U.S. Census,” Probst said.
Why is it that healthcare consumers know so little about spending and the waste associated with it? Probst says that “Despite consistent calls for price and quality transparency from the business community since the ‘buy-right’ movement of the early 1980s, the IOM’s call for action more than a decade ago, and the sustained effort of many labor and consumer groups, our nation has yet to achieve meaningful transparency. As long as price differences remain opaque to patients and their physicians, there is little hope for improving the affordability and efficiency of American healthcare.”
Tags: American healthcare system, American Medical Association, Commonwealth Fund, Healthcare, healthcare reform, Institute of Medicine
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Monday, June 28th, 2010
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to enact a patch on Medicare payments to physicians and declared his commitment to achieving a long-term solution. “For years, I have said that a system where doctors are left to wonder if they’ll get fairly reimbursed makes absolutely no sense,” the President said. “And I’m committed to permanently reforming this Medicare formula in a way that balances fiscal responsibility with the responsibility we have to doctors and seniors.” The President’s statement came after legislation that would give physicians 18 months of pay raises stalled in the Senate. Instead, a 21 percent pay cut will go into effect unless the Senate acts to prevent that.
According to an American Medical Association survey, approximately 20 percent of physicians have said they are limiting the number of Medicare patients they treat because of the reimbursement levels. In his speech, President Obama took to task Congressional Republicans who have stalled the legislation. A significant number of Republicans – and some Democrats – are unhappy with the price tag on the “physician fix”, which would cost approximately $22 billion over 18 months. A 10-year fix would cost in the neighborhood of $200 billion.
The American Osteopathic Association, American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians are on record as supporting the amendment, even though it doesn’t completely restructure the way physicians are reimbursed by Medicare.
Tags: American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, American Medical Association, American Osteopathic Association, Congress, Democrats, Medicare, Medicare patch, Physician fix, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Senate, senior citizens
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Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
When President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law on July 30, 1965, he faced a year of nearly crippling attacks from groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) and conservatives who feared an onslaught of “socialized medicine” and threatened to boycott the new program. Although memories of the Medicare battle have faded over 45 years, similar battles could be fought over the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This is the opinion of Dr. Atul Gawande, general and endocrine surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Writing in The New Yorker, Gawande notes that because most of the healthcare reform act’s provisions phase in at a slower pace than did Medicare, it is even more open to attack. “The context, of course, is different. The AMA endorsed the legislations; hospital associations were supportive. Once the public option was dropped, most insurers favored the bill. The medical world will wage no civil resistance. This time, the threat comes from party politics. Conservatives are casting the November midterm elections as a vote on repealing the health-reform law. If they regain power, they are unlikely to repeal the whole thing. Instead, they will try to strip out the critical but less straightforwardly appealing elements of reform – the requirement that larger employers provide health benefits and that uncovered individuals buy at least a basic policy; the subsidies to make sure that they can afford those policies; the significant new taxes on household incomes over $250,000 – and thereby gut coverage for the uninsured.”
Gawande notes that reform is hardly a government takeover of healthcare, as many opponents contend. Rather, its success relies on communities and clinicians. “We are the ones to determine whether costs are controlled and healthcare improves – which is to say, whether reform survives and resistance is defeated,” according to Gawande. “The voting is over, and the country has many other issues that clamor for attention. But, as L.B.J. would have recognized, the battle for healthcare reform has only begun.”
Tags: American Medical Association, Atul Gawande, conservatives, Harvard Medical School, Medicare, President Barack Obama, public option, socialized medicine, The New Yorker
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