Health Law Advisor

by Brandon C. Ge

In the months leading up to Election Day 2012, the pace of health reform implementation slowed considerably as the Obama administration held off on releasing regulations to avoid pre-election controversy. With the 2012 elections now in the books, health reform has scored two major victories: the re-election of President Barack Obama and the preservation of a Democratic majority in the Senate. Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is now safe from repeal, implementation still faces hurdles, such as state resistance, the fiscal cliff, and pending lawsuits ...

For the last week or so, the health reform public policy debate has been keyed to the Senate HELP Committee’s draft and thus dominated by whether or not the “Exchange” to be employed in access reform should include a “public plan” and, if so, whether such a plan should have the power to access provider payment rates tied to Medicare and whether Medicare participating providers would be required to contract with it. With this week’s release of the Senate Finance Committee’s draft, it will be interesting to see whether payment reform can similarly capture the ...