One of the people with the most hands-on health reform experience in America is losing confidence that much hoped-for federal-level reform will occur after the presidential election.
Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Connector in Massachusetts, told me that America’s economic implosion may endanger the chances of health care reform proposals.
Clearly there’s a lot of interest and it’s a big domestic policy priority. Senator Obama has, in particular, identified that as a priority. However, the straightened financial circumstances are such that, on the one hand, there may be all the more need for it, but on the other hand, far fewer federal and state resources are available to finance reform. So, myself, I’m a little bit less optimistic than before the recent financial services meltdown and the accompanying federal bail-out. But I wouldn’t rule it out.
Kingsdale will speak at the 6th Annual World Health Care Congress in Washington DC. One of the “lessons learned” from the Massachusetts experience is that, while waiting for legislators to turn their attention to health reform, the private sector can take a lead. Kingsdale appreciates “the tremendous effort that went into it on the part of private sector groups to try to promote reform, really for two or three years before the legislature even enacted something.”
That coalition of support, which is very broad, has stayed actively involved in the implementation as well. And that’s just, I think, a critical lesson. You know, frankly, we did health reform here 20 years ago under Governor Dukakis by a slim, it passed by a slim, slim majority, and never really was implemented. By contrast, there’s a very broad consensus here, and we’ve done everything we can in a difficult implementation process to actually build on and enhance that consensus.