In a new opinion column, Ascension President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony R. Tersigni, EdD, FACHE, says recent news gives him new hope for a bipartisan approach to solving the nation's healthcare problems.
Writing in Morning Consult, Tony cites the way both parties of Congress and President Donald Trump came together recently to support aid to hurricane victims.
"I am also heartened by what could be an emerging, bipartisan health policy direction to respond to struggling individual insurance markets — at least in the near term," he writes. "While we must engage over the long term about how to restructure the health care marketplace, we need to increase the chances right now for the existing marketplace to succeed. This means policymakers should consider immediate legislation to appropriate funds for cost-sharing reductions that help the most vulnerable afford insurance and provide states more flexibility to demonstrate different ways to achieve the goal of increasing coverage and decreasing costs."
Tony notes that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee scheduled four hearings this month on both short- and long-term healthcare reform. The hearings have included information on a commonsense, short-term approach to strengthen the existing markets, jump start state innovation and more effectively control costs offered by a group of eight governors.
"Others are coalescing around similar bipartisan proposals," Tony says. "The Bipartisan Policy Center's Future of Health Care expert panel called for a two-stage approach to healthcare reform. First, the panel advocates for stabilizing the individual insurance market and then taking on the more challenging task of addressing the more fundamental structural challenges in our healthcare system. The BPC's recommendations are similar in scope and content to the eight governors' letter. The BPC recommends a two-year extension of the CSRs, a health insurance stability fund, greater use of health savings accounts and a study of alternatives to the individual mandate."
Tony encourages looking for ways to increase flexibility for so they can unleash innovation and creativity on expanding coverage and decreasing costs.
"All of us want a strong marketplace, and it is essential we get the right premium rates, care delivery networks and care management programs in place to stabilize the marketplace," he says. "While thought leaders and policymakers differ markedly on how that marketplace should be constructed for the long term, all of us agree that the marketplace that we have right now should be as strong as possible in the near term to serve all of us, especially those most vulnerable."
Click here for the full column.
