The ASA executive committee supports the Healthcare Reform bill.
Do you agree or not?
Will you remain a member of the ASA?
The ASA is supporting it because changes have been made to the house bill that are favorable to your pocket.
U.S. House of Representatives
This coming Saturday, the House is tentatively slated to vote on the new H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act." The bill is a significantly modified version of H.R. 3200 previously adopted by the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor Committees.
Most notably for ASA, H.R. 3962 includes a public plan that has moved away from payment rates tied to Medicare rates for physician services, and instead provides provisions toward freely negotiated rates.
This significant change has been ASA's top priority, and ASA members are to be congratulated for their tremendous grassroots efforts urging Congress to reject a public plan tied to Medicare payment rates.
As part of the debate on H.R. 3200, ASA strongly supported a proposed amendment by Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) that would have de-linked a public plan option from Medicare payment rates for anesthesia services.
Now that H.R. 3962 includes negotiated payments allowing anesthesiologists to be paid at commercial/private insurance levels, Rep. Johnson's amendment is essentially moot. ASA is extremely grateful to Rep. Johnson for her leadership on this important issue, and to ASA members for their hard work supporting the Johnson amendment. The support it generated ultimately helped move House leadership away from a public plan tied to Medicare rates.
More universally, the new bill includes a number of important health insurance reforms that would expand access to insurance coverage and ensure broader fairness to patients by health plans. ASA is extremely supportive of these provisions, which include guaranteed issuance, guaranteed renewability, no lifetime or annual limits on care, the elimination of pre-existing condition prohibitions, and other reforms. H.R. 3962 would also create a health insurance "exchange" through which certain individuals could purchase health plans.
All told, these health insurance provisions would reduce the percentage of uninsured patients to 4 percent of the population—a tremendous improvement for patients and physicians.
ASA is also pleased that H.R. 3962 would remove the anti-trust exemption for health insurers and add enhanced requirements on insurers to direct more premium resources directly toward patient care and away from excessive executive compensation and investor profits. This beneficial language would help level the playing field among providers and insurers.
While H.R. 3962 does not include a fix to the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (SGR), House leaders have reiterated their commitment to achieving needed reforms. They plan to move forward with a new free-standing SGR bill, H.R. 3961, based on the SGR reforms that ASA supported in H.R. 3200. ASA supports H.R. 3961 to reform the SGR, avoid a 21 percent cut in January 2010, and establish a pathway to future positive Medicare updates.
H.R. 3962 includes thousands of health-related provisions. Legislation of this magnitude and complexity is not without flaws. However, I believe it represents a positive step forward in strengthening our health care system without adversely impacting our specialty.
Saturday's vote, while important, is by no means the end of this process. We expect many more twists and turns before health care reform legislation eventually becomes law.
U.S. Senate
