ICYMI: Dean of Harvard Med School Assigns a "Failing Grade" to Health-Reform Proposals
Posted by The Campaign on November 18, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School, believes Congress' legislation will markedly accelerate health-care spending while simultaneously doing little or nothing to improve quality and stifling any opportunity for innovation.
Here are a few key excerpts:
"Speeches and news reports can lead you to believe that proposed congressional legislation would tackle the problems of cost, access and quality. But that's not true. The various bills do deal with access by expanding Medicaid and mandating subsidized insurance at substantial cost...However, there are no provisions to substantively control the growth of costs or raise the quality of care. So the overall effort will fail to qualify as reform."
"In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it."
"Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care's dysfunctional delivery system."
For the full article, click here.
