“New health insurance reforms and consumer protections will solve the problem without creating a new government-run plan that will disrupt the quality coverage that millions of Americans rely on today. We share the concerns that hospitals, doctors, employers, and patients have all raised about the significant unintended consequences of a government-run plan,” Ignagni said.
“America's hospitals stand ready to do our part to extend coverage to more Americans and to continually strive towards providing high-quality care for patients that is more efficient and affordable,” said Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, in a written statement. The AHA continues to have concerns on how a public plan would be constructed but is “glad to see that President Obama is open to exploring other ideas that would help us achieve our shared goal of universal coverage.”
Blair Childs, senior vice president of public affairs with the Premier healthcare alliance, said that the best way to bend the cost curve would be to institute quality reforms such as hospital value-based purchasing and voluntary accountable care organizations and encourage evidence-based medicine, as well as increase the transparency of cost and quality information. “Such policies are included in the Senate Finance Committee's framework, and we look forward to working with Congress and the administration to advance these reforms,” Childs said.
J. James Rohack, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, in the meantime was pleased that Obama recognized the need to enact medical liability reforms. “Everyday physicians across the country are forced to consider the broken medical liability system when making decisions, resulting in defensive medicine that adds to unnecessary health costs. We cannot ignore this problem if health-system reform is going to address the growing cost of care,” Rohack said in a statement.
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