Press on with ACA, opinion leaders say

A full 89% of respondents said it is very important or important that federal and state policymakers continue to move forward to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the final Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey.

Modern Healthcare on Monday will publish the last installment of the survey, conducted by Harris Interactive. This is the 27th survey in the series, which began in 2005. The Commonwealth Fund is discontinuing the series to focus on other projects. For this final survey, Harris Interactive polled 185 leaders in health policy, healthcare delivery and finance. The survey was conducted between Sept. 28 and Oct. 25, and the response rate was 14.2%.

Survey respondents liked several cost-cutting proposals for Medicare and Medicaid put forth by President Barack Obama in his framework for reducing the federal budget deficit. Among them are adjusting payments to encourage efficient post-acute care, aligning Medicare and Medicaid drug payment policies, and introducing financial incentives to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to use high-value services.

Also, 90% of opinion leaders strongly support or support reducing waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid to achieve additional savings in the programs.

In addition, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and John Colmers, vice president for Health Care Transformation and Strategic Planning at Johns Hopkins Medicine, write columns on how Americans are benefiting from the ACA and the challenging journey ahead for implementing reforms, respectively.

Full coverage of the survey results will also appear online Monday at commonwealthfund.org and ModernHealthcare.com.