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UPDATE: March 12, 2021: President Joe Biden signed the legislation a bit earlier than planned, on Thursday afternoon.
Provider groups including the American Hospital Association immediately called on Congress to pass a new bill extending the pause on Medicare sequester cuts. The House of Representatives will vote next week on such a bill.
The cuts have provided critical relief to providers during the public health emergency, but higher overhead and lost revenue have presented overwhelming financial challenges and pressures, the groups wrote.
The COVID-19 relief bill the House passed Wednesday is a major win for various sectors in the healthcare industry, and includes the biggest update to the Affordable Care Act since it was enacted 11 years ago this month.
Four health care experts discussed the implementation and feasibility of universal health care in the United States at a Berkeley Forum event Thursday.
The panelists’ central debate was about whether or not universal health care is possible in the United States.
The panel included Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals; Adam Gaffney, assistant professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School; Jui-Fen Rachel Lu, professor at the Graduate Institute of Business and Management at Chang Gung University in Taiwan; and Scott Sinder, chair and partner of Steptoe and Johnson’s Government Affairs and Public Policy practice group.
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Biden Aims to Build on Obamacare’s Cost-Cutting Measures
Certified nursing assistant Princess Makor serves lunch to Pauline Sorrow at a COVID-19 field hospital in Cranston, Rhode Island, last month while Sorrow’s husband, Peter, also sick with the virus, watches. Health care spending has slowed somewhat since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, and President Joe Biden says his health plan will continue to decrease health expenditures.
David Goldman
The Associated Press
In the decade-plus since it became law, the Affordable Care Act has helped slow the explosive growth in health spending. But the United States still spends about twice as much per capita as other wealthy nations.
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The Biden administration is starting out in lockstep with every sector of the healthcare industry: All agree that the top priority must be addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, and every other issue is a distant second.
Major stakeholder groups also share the main goal of President Joe Biden’s healthcare plan of increasing insurance coverage.
“We are feeling encouraged in these early days with an administration that cares deeply about affordable quality coverage and care for all,” said Ceci Connolly, CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans.
But there is less agreement on how to do so. Several industry heavyweights are working together around the idea of expanding coverage in a manner they see fit. In February, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and some other large groups created the Affordable Coverage Coalition. Its goal is to achieve universal