With folks on the left growing increasingly uncomfortable over what might land on the cutting room floor, and newspapers and radio highlighting heartbreaking cases of bankruptcy based on un- and underinsurance, it is more important than ever to focus on comprehensive national health reform.
Today, the Senate Finance Committee is holding a roundtable, "Reforming America's Healthcare Delivery System." The roundtable includes 13 of the foremost thinkers in health care reform -- from Mark McClellan, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, now at Brookings, to Debra Ness, head of the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Why Senate Finance? Well, the chair of the committee, Max Baucus, is hugely invested in health care reform; I recommend reading his Call to Action white paper. Ultimately, it is Senate Finance, along with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (somewhat reduced in stature as Ted Kennedy has been away from the Hill battling cancer), House Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and (to a lesser extent) Education and Labor Committees that will draft the legislation that is health care reform -- from a public plan to comparative effectiveness to electronic medical records to provider reimbursement to medical homing to reducing the burden of chronic disease.
You can watch the roundtable live on CSPAN 3 or via the Senate Finance Committee's website. If you miss it, both CSPAN and the committee will have an archived webcast available shortly.
Photo Credit: ProgressOhio on Flickr. Creative Commons License.
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