On the campaign trail, Barack Obama made certain health care promises: to make health insurance affordable and accessible to all, to lower health care costs and to promote public health.
The Obama plan builds on the current system of providers, doctors and plans to implement changes. It calls to invest in health information technology, offer prevention and care coordination to lower health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family, require coverage of preventive services (including cancer screenings), and increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
Now as our nation’s 44th president, Obama’s “Yes We Can” plan for health care has users and providers of health care services in St. Louis hopefully optimistic and looking for his administration to fill in the gaps in our nation’s health care system.
Will Ross, M.D., M.P.H.
Associate Dean for Diversity, Associate Professor of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine
Board Chairman, Missouri Foundation for Health
I think President Obama clearly grasps the complexity of health care reform in the U.S., and understands the urgent need for action to provide all Americans quality affordable health coverage. He has presented a health care plan which expands coverage through employer-based insurance, provides subsidies for catastrophic health care costs, while requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. He will do this while preserving choice of health providers.
At the same time, he is a political pragmatist who has assembled the right team to get his plan passed by Congress in short order. I have deep respect for former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Peter Orszag, his budget chief who was former director of the Congressional Budget Office. This team knows where the land mines are that side-railed President Clinton’s health care plan in 1992. They are a politically savvy team that will make this happen.
I do not think it is coincidental that Congress finally passed the needed expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program, which had been vetoed by President Bush – there is a sense of optimism on both sides of the aisle in Washington.
Although financing health care coverage was not part of the recent stimulus bill, I have no doubt that health care reform is on the top of Obama’s agenda and anticipate continued significant health care reform during his presidency. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice of health is the most shocking and the most inhumane.” This country is witnessing the genesis of a moral leader who truly is committed to resolving the injustice of health.
Dr. Delores Gunn
Director, St. Louis County Health Department
My sincere hope and expectation is that the incoming Obama administration will directly address the issue of people being uninsured or underinsured by enacting – at minimum – universal health coverage for every American 18 years of age and younger.
Pamela Rice Walker, MPA
Interim Director, St. Louis Health Department
I am very optimistic. He is a person who has worked in the community and understands the need at the local level. He understands how hard it is to get money to trickle down from the federal government to the local level, and I think he will try to make some changes there where the dollars come to community-based organizations and city governments to help us meet the big challenges that we face.
Dr. Consuelo Wilkins
St. Louis American Health Editor
Director, CARE in Our Community
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry
Washington University School of Medicine
Addressing issues related to access to health care and providing equitable health care must be central in reforming our health systems. Providing health “coverage” alone will not suffice. It is easy to believe that if everyone has an insurance card that everyone will receive quality care. If we don’t address some of the social determinants of health and the inequities within the health system i.e., literacy/health literacy, housing, environmental risks, language and cultural factors, we will continue to have disparate health care.
Secretary-Designate Daschle, upon Senate confirmation, will lead health care reform as Health and Human Services Secretary and as the newly created White House Office of Health Reform.