Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm Lynn Blewett.
I'm an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota,
and I also direct the state health access data assistance on our research center that looks
at access in coverage across the country.
So, when you think about what role Minnesota will play in the national reform discussions,
and in the process of when and if a bill is passed, I think right now we're a leader
in terms of payment reform, and quality care measurement, and the medical hall model,
and that's something that people talk about.
Its in key to have health reform but it's not really part of what's gonna pass initially.
The cost containment is gonna come later,
and I think once that process starts it's either gonna be an advisory committee or a requirement
for a study to come back to congress.
Then the Congress and the federal analysts will start to look around for models,
and Minnesota will be clearly at the top of the list of where to go to see what can be done.
It's very hard to speculate on what actually will pass and be signed by the president.
I do feel very confident that something will pass.
I think the president has been very outspoken in terms of wanting a bill and very much
of a leadership and an advocate for that bill.
It may be with or without Republicans signed on.
Right now it looks there might not be a bipartisan bill.
But I do think there'll be a bill, a reform bill that moves
through the congress and is signed by the president.
Now, what's in there may not be everything that we would all like.
I think there'll be some movement towards increasing Medicaid coverage.
There'll be some premium subsidies for middle-income families to afford,
to help them afford private insurance coverage.
And then there'll be some provisions in terms of insurance reform and then possibly direction
in terms of cost containment and other things that need to be done over time.
And so, there'll be some movement towards universal coverage but we clearly won't get
to universal coverage in this round.
Having said that, I think that's not to, that we shouldn't give
up on continued work on health reform.
So, in some ways this might be the toehold we need
to continue movement towards reforming the system.
To make it better and more responsive, and more efficient, to provide quality care.
And that will continue to happen, we'll continue to work on that over time.
This is probably the most visible and, visible nationally,
we've had a good national discussion.
People are engaged and people like me will continue to work on this when it's not
on the front page of the paper every day.
There'll be continued efforts to continue to reform the healthcare system.
One of the things that we were hoping with this round of healthcare reform is
that we would move toward universal coverage,
which means that everybody would have access to affordable coverage.
Unfortunately, to do that requires a significant amount of resources
that we currently don't have, and people are not willing to increase taxes to pay for that.
So most of the bills moving through the Congress do reduce the number of uninsured
but we still have a long way to go to get to universal coverage.
The bills will make a dent in that,
the ones that are being considered, but it's not gonna go to zero.
Its gonna be maybe cut in half if even the most aggressive bill is passed.