-- Dr. Donald Berwick, former CMS administrator under Obama, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress

"I think what this victory means is that we can continue the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which is really critical. ... In 2014, we really begin to address the 48 million people who don't have anything. The bill is intended to facilitate getting coverage for the 30 to 32 million of them by expanding Medicaid and with the (insurance) exchanges. The president's victory means we stay on course to do that. And obviously, CHA has been a supporter of the Affordable Care Act from the start. ... This is the first chance in certainly 80 years that a large number of Americans who don't have health insurance -- and don't have access to healthcare, for the most part -- this is the first time that we see on the horizon for an opportunity to change that."

-- Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO, Catholic Health Association of the United States

"I think the election clearly indicates the ACA will move forward, so we've got to work on the implementation through the regulatory side, and we'll look for opportunities to improve it on the legislative side."

-- Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO, American Hospital Association

"I don't think there is any question that we have a healthcare bill and the healthcare bill won't be repealed. It's incumbent on us as providers to figure out efficiencies."

-- Dr. Delos "Toby" Cosgrove, president and CEO, Cleveland Clinic

"We think that healthcare in a country like ours is something that is a right as opposed to a privilege. We have been, as you know, supporters of the ACA because we acknowledge that right and we believe through the results of the election that momentum and actions will continue to full implementation of the act. ... Even if the act itself had been modified severely, we would still move forward with what we think is important to figure out a way to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, to raise the bar for quality and to increase access."

-- Lloyd Dean, president and CEO, Dignity Health

"I expect the act to essentially remain intact. There may be some fine-tuning around the edges, but I don't see the fundamental elements of the (ACA) going away, and I think IPAB will actually end up staying -- it's a very important component of the bill."

-- Gary Kaplan, chairman and CEO, Virginia Mason Health System, Seattle

"I personally don't think it makes much difference. Healthcare is changing and it's OK. ... I think docs frequently tend to get down and depressed about stuff that's not going their way. I hope they can keep a positive attitude."

-- Dr. Doug Curran, family practice physician in Athens, Texas; member of the board of trustees for the Texas Medical Association

"I think there's a little more clarity about healthcare reform, and we have some sense of that staying in place -- and I think that's helpful as we progress and work on the value equation and all the initiatives around quality and cost that everyone is working so hard on. ... Some of us felt it would have been hard to repeal the ACA, but (if Romney had won) there would have been at least some attempt to undo parts of it using administrative approaches."

-- Dr. Nicholas Wolter, CEO, Billings (Mont.) Clinic

"My great hope, and the hope of the American College of Surgeons, is that there will now be a spirit of bipartisanship in Congress to figure out how to fix those things that are broken in our healthcare system. ... It may sound simplistic, but we have to be at the table. We've got to speak forcefully about what works and what doesn't work, and it must be in the context of what is in the best interests of our patients."

-- Dr. Brent Eastman, president, American College of Surgeons

"There's still an awful lot that we're dealing with. ... The near-term concern for us is the proposed cuts that are out there. The concern is that with the fiscal cliff, we're going to see more arbitrary cuts. We really need to deal with some long-term solutions."

-- Dan Slipkovich, chairman and CEO, Capella Health

"We have more certainty about what's going to happen. We did not change anything (ahead of the election), we just continued down the same path understanding the healthcare reform bill would be retained for the most part anyway. The thing I'm going to be concerned with is how Congress is going to deal with the fiscal cliff. We're concerned about the expense cuts and where they're going to occur."

-- Warner Thomas, president and CEO, Ochsner Health System, New Orleans

"Now (the president and Congress) have to decide whether sequestration is the best work they can do or if they think they can do better work together. If they think they can work together, they'll have to put all issues on the table. That's why I'm not thinking that it's absolute that all portions of the Affordable Care Act will proceed."

-- Dr. Dean Gruner, president and CEO, ThedaCare, Appleton, Wis.

"The (Medicaid) expansions are critically important to all hospitals. The whole point of health reform from our standpoint was the expansion of coverage. ... There probably will be momentum for implementation since the president was re-elected and he's going to be obviously encouraging the states to move forward with the law."

-- Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals

"The bottom line is there will be arguments about the scale of Medicare and Medicaid and how they should be financed. But I hope health policymakers will focus on health spending and making healthcare work better for all of us. That's not a partisan issue."

-- Stuart Guterman, vice president and executive director, the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System

"The change itself would've happened regardless (of who won). ... I don't know about certainty, but at least there's reliability and some predictability to evolve from a volume-based system of care to one that is value-based. It really doesn't change our plan. We wanted to develop our accountable care structure regardless of who got elected."

-- John Fraser, president and CEO, Methodist Health System, Omaha, Neb.

"We've been actively implementing the ACA, and this is good for us in the sense that we know now we can continue on in the path that we've been moving on with greater certainty that we have a federal partner."

-- Anya Rader Wallack, chairwoman, Green Mountain Care Board, responsible for establishing a single-payer health plan in Vermont

"It means the AMA will continue to work with Congress and the administration to get the best outcomes for our physicians and their patients as the ACA continues to be implemented. ... We want to see the SGR repealed. We'd like to see stability in the Medicare payment system in general. This will be an enormous issue for us over the next month."

-- Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, president, American Medical Association