Despite varying political backgrounds, three health care experts are advising physicians that the presidential election will be crucial in deciding the way they practice and how it can be financed.
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Discussing 聽some of the prickliest issues at stake in the health care delivery system, Dr. David Blumenthal, previously a director of health IT for the Obama administration;聽Dr. Gail Wilensky, who ran聽the Medicare program during聽the George H.W. Bush administration, and Dr. Robert Berenson, who led Medicare payment policy at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and served in the Obama and Carter administrations, wrote three separate editorials released by on Monday. Their focus:聽the impact of the election on health care.
that although voters鈥� decisions may ultimately be motivated by their views on the economy, they should聽instead聽think carefully about the future of聽the health care system. 鈥淣ot since聽the 1964 contest聽between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson, whose victory made possible the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, has a presidential contest carried such signficant, immediate, and certain implications for physicians, patients, and all the other stakeholders in our health care system.鈥�
Wilensky , writing that the election鈥檚 outcome, in the short-term, will have only a limited effect on the practice of medicine, because 鈥渢he same serious challenges need to be resolved no matter who wins the presidency and control of Congress.鈥� Among these challenges, she lists physicians鈥� own 鈥渇iscal cliff,鈥� which聽 is rooted in the flaws in the current Medicare physician payment formula, scheduled 鈥渟equestration鈥� budget cuts geared toward deficit reductions that go into effect in January and the need to slow health care spending.
惭别补苍飞丑颈濒别,听 that without a decisive victory by either party from the top of the ticket down, the health care system鈥檚 flaws will persist. 鈥淥ur federal government system, with its multiple layers of often arcane checks and balances, limits decisive policy departures and tends to reinforce the status quo even when the status quo is highly imperfect.鈥�
All three editorials emphasize that the political conflict over health care could result in gaps in health care reforms and warned that聽physicians could find themselves 鈥� and their paychecks 鈥� caught in the midst.