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What’s next for health-care reform?

Dick Taffe — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:26:43 +0000

Health-care reform is slipping from the media limelight and financial regulatory reform is moving in. School of Management Professor Stephen Davidson, author of “Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Healthcare System,” says in a BU Today interview that there’s a lot that needs to be done right to make sure reform stays on track and the insurers don’t game the evolving new system.

“As this program begins to roll out, there are going to be things we won’t like. As more people are affected by it, there may be more support for changes.”

Contact Stephen Davidson, sdavidso@bu.edu, 617-353-7422

After the healthcare “summit”

Dick Taffe — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:11:49 +0000

With President Obama’s ballyhooed healthcare “summit” with Republicans over, political science Professors Graham Wilson and Douglas Kriner offered their takes on what it all means (or doesn’t).

WILSON: ”The session showed that there are differences that can’t be bridged. But in purely political terms, neither the President not the Democrats can afford to be seen to have been defeated and enter the midterm campaign with nothing to show on this signature issue.”

KRINER: “The administration did not seem very open to approaches that varied significantly from the Senate bill. This would seem to suggest that both Republican priorities, like comprehensive tort reform, and Democratic ones, like re-introducing the public option, are unlikely to generate real support from the White House.”

Contact Graham Wilson, 617-353-2540, gkwilson@bu.edu, or Douglas Kriner, 617-358-4643, dkriner@bu.edu

Senate compromise on “public option”

Dick Taffe — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:25:16 +0000

Senate Democratic leaders have a tentative compromise on the “public option” part of the healthcare-reform bill which might be able to garner enough votes to get the whole package passed. Professor Alan Cohen, who heads BU’s Health Policy Institute, thinks it’s smart to offer private plans under the auspices of the federal-employee health program and to let middle-aged people buy into Medicare.

“These are reasonable, commonsensical concessions by the liberals to gain the support of the moderates in Congress, and a separate national public option would not be necessary unless these options failed in the short-term.”

Contact Alan Cohen, 617-353-9222, abcohen@bu.edu