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Health Care Policy & Reform

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Jessie Gruman on Healthcare Reform: Healthcare Reform Means Taking “No” for an Answer “Saying ‘yes’ to every new drug device or test doesn’t necessarily lead to better health” From US News and World Report, June 23, 2009 Health Reform May Require Outside Instigators “America’s hospitality industry annually benefits from a full calendar of conferences sponsored by some experts and attended by many others on how to reform the nation’s healthcare system. Involved are a tag team of the usual suspects, all of whom are quite smart. Irrespective of who pays them and picks up their expenses, participants see themselves as part of the solution.” From GoodBehavior!, September, 2007 Jessie Gruman on Comparative Effectiveness Research: “An Unintended Consequence of Better Evidence” From GoodBehavior!, June 2008

As a public charity, CFAH conducts research, publishes information and advocates for legislation that will prepare Americans to make good choices about health and health care. As the national debate on the cost and quality of health care reaches a fever pitch, we are concerned that the critical role of individuals in the success of the health care enterprise has been overlooked. Therefore, CFAH has partnered with other organizations to advance policies that support our experiences as patients and helps us to engage more fully in our own health and health care. Below you’ll find more information on the legislation that CFAH supports. For answers to your questions about health policy and other issues on reform, please contact CFAH's Director of Communications, Kafi Grigsby by email at: kgrigsby@cfah.org

• Joint Letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius in support of a robust Meaningful Use rule.
  CFAH joins more than 50 leading consumer and employer groups to issue a letter to top officials at DHHS who are responsible for establishing the criteria for "meaningful use" of health information technology (HIT). The letter encourages DHHS to include language that will ensure that publicly-funded incentives to providers for the adoption of HIT result in improvements in the quality and affordability of health care. Health care consumers expect that HIT provides benefit to patients, not just providers. The groups, including AARP, Consumer’s Union, the National Partnership for Women & Families, the Pacific Business Group on Health, SEIU, and Wal-Mart have been supportive of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) robust proposed definition of "meaningful use" and see the meaningful use incentive program as a major investment that puts the necessary infrastructure in place for better individual health care and system-wide reform.
  April 20, 2010



• Joint letter to Congress to requesting they remove interstate compacts from the final House and Senate health reform bills
  Under the proposed health insurance reform bills every American will be required to purchase health insurance. For those who are unable to afford it, federal taxpayers will provide billions of dollars in subsidies for them to buy insurance. However, if these provisions are enacted, the federal government will be allowing insurance companies to operate with an unprecedented lack of accountability and transparency through the formation of Health Care Choice Compacts, a provision that allows insurance companies to sell “across State lines.” The proposal will eliminate consumers’ rights to key enforcement protections of the States in which they live.
  January 8, 2010



• Letter in Support of Senator John Kerry's Amendment to Empower Health Insurance Exchanges to Negotiate Rates with the Health Plans
  This letter, co-signed by more than 60 politically diverse consumer advocates, makes the case that the ability to negotiate rates with plans it the critical tool needed by insurance exchanges to get more value for consumers and keep premium increases low.
  October 20, 2009



• Comments on Senate Finance Committee Policy Options for Transforming the Health Care Delivery System
  Group letter to The Honorable Max Baucus (Chair, Senate Finance Committee) and The Honorable Charles Grassley (Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee) advocating that the principles of patient and family-centered care be made central to health care reform.
  May 15, 2009



• CFAH Comments on IOM Committee on Comparative Effectiveness Research Priorities Process
  Read the testimony of Dorothy Jeffress, CFAH’s Executive Director, to the IOM Committee on Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) Priorities Process, wherein CFAH proposes when developing CER, stakeholders engage the patient community.
  March 20, 2009



• Principles for Patient and Family Centered Care
  Together with more than 30 groups representing health consumers and patients, CFAH endorses principles for patient centered health care to be adopted by advanced medical home practices.
  March 30, 2009

**The Center for Advancing Health (CFAH) is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) organization. CFAH does not directly or indirectly participate in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for elected office. CFAH makes no donations or contributions to political campaigns.