The Hard Truths of Health Care Reform: A Primary Care Perspective

Abstract

In the past few weeks, I have answered dozens of inquiries on the same topic. What is my opinion on the current health care reform bill in Congress?  The reforms really do bear a striking resemblance to what has been implemented in Massachusetts in the past 5 years. The simple easy truths are: 1) we will have expanded health care plans available to approximately 30 million Americans, 2) the plans will include mandates to provide incentives to individuals to participate, 3) health plans will not be able to exclude individuals based on pre-existing conditions.¹ I would hope that these straightforward main elements of the plan would be generally acceptable to a majority of the political spectrum. But recent events have shown that the health plan is indeed very controversial. Unfortunately, I think the health reform plan is often misunderstood. Some of my patients wonder if their current health plans will be more restricted or changed by the reforms. They will not. There are fiscal conservatives that believe it will be too costly despite the Congressional Budget Office predictions that it will save money........