Setting Priorities for Health Care Reform

Got a view on health care reform? Congress wants to hear from you.

As members of Congress tackle the issue in the next few months, they are listening to organizations like AARP and inviting them to join the debate.

That’s very different from the last attempt at massive health care changes in 1994. Then, leaders met in secret. Now, roundtables and seminars are the order—at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

President Obama and Congress hope that this approach is more successful and that they can agree on significant changes this year. Says Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “We are clearly as close as we’ve ever been, but it’s still a long journey. This is one of the steepest ascents in politics.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., invited officials from a variety of groups, including AARP President Jennie Chin Hansen, to give their views. AARP, which has supported Obama’s call for health care reform in general, has listed six specific priorities: affordable health care for Americans ages 50 to 64; closing the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole”; creating a Medicare “transition benefit” to cover people transitioning from hospital to home; increasing federal funding for in-home care; smoothing the path for generic versions of biologic drugs; and improving Medicare programs for low-income Americans.

Get involved, send Congress a message.