Health Care Reform Opportunities and Affordable Care Act Implementation

What is the state of health care in America? Can costs be reduced and outcomes improved? Will the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) implementation be successful? Which aspects of ACA are already having a positive impact? What to expect on October 1 when state health exchanges go online? Kavita Patel, a fellow in the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings and also a practicing internal medicine physician with Johns Hopkins Medicine, speaks about these and other questions related to one of the most important aspects of our lives.

Patel says that one thing that worries her about health care is that “nobody feels as if it is their responsibility to tackle that cost [of health care].” She also says that she is worried about “active resistance” to implementation of the Affordable Care Act despite the benefits that are already apparent.

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Show notes:

• Containing Health Care Costs: Recent Progress and Remaining Challenges, testimony by Kavita Patel to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee
• Advancing Reform: Medicare Physicians Payments, testimony by Kavita Patel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee
• Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Health Care System, Brookings book by William Haseltine
• Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, TIME magazine article by Steven Brill
• Views of US Physicians About Controlling Health Care Costs, Journal of the American Medical Association
• Making Sense Of Geographic Variations In Health Care: The New IOM Report