In a commentary in the Chicago Tribune (10/12), Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chair of the department of bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health, wrote that not only does the current financial crisis “actually make healthcare reform more pressing, it makes comprehensive reform – change in the way healthcare is paid for and how care is organized and delivered – more realistic and feasible.” Furthermore, because Americans are now facing “the prospect of losing their homes and jobs,” they “may be more willing to forgo gold-plated comprehensive insurance that covers everything with few restrictions.” Dr. Emanuel noted that “this should enhance the chances for a bipartisan deal on healthcare,” especially since “the huge increase in the federal debt that [the] bailouts will entail intensifies the pressure to rein in healthcare costs,” which “favors comprehensive rather than incremental reform.” Dr. Emanuel concludes that, “while the financial crisis has appeared to knock healthcare off the national agenda…it may in fact make comprehensive healthcare reform more politically feasible.”
Experts warn financial crisis will impact healthcare, medical communities. MedPage Today (10/10, Walker) reported, “The worldwide financial crisis and credit crunch will not spare the healthcare and medical communities, and they should brace for some major upheavals, warn economists, executives, and physicians.” According to a series of interviews by MedPage Today, physicians will face workforce issues and changes at group practices and hospitals in light of the current economic downturn. William Jessee, M.D., president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, noted that “one of the most immediate changes in medicine that the financial crisis may herald is that older physicians are likely to delay retirement.” The “silver lining,” however, may be a delay in the expected physician shortage, Jessee added. He also predicted that “credit lines on which” physician group practices “previously relied to run their business” may dry up, forcing them to “lay-off employees or to shut down altogether.” Furthermore, although it is currently unclear “whether the federal government’s $750 billion Wall Street rescue strengthens or diminishes the chances of” healthcare reform by the new administration, “some say reform is now more important than ever.”
Economic downturn may delay healthcare reform, analysts say. In the Chicago Tribune’s (10/10) Triage blog, Judith Graham wrote, “The financial crisis roiling Wall Street and Main Street will make wide-ranging health reform all but impossible next year and perhaps for years to come,” according to “a growing number of policy analysts.” Joseph Antos, the Wilson H. Taylor scholar in healthcare and retirement policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said that, although “we still need to do something about healthcare,” Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) “vision of getting everyone insurance [and] everyone getting coverage as good as [their] congressman’s – that’s not possible right now.” Antos noted that Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) “health plan would be extremely expensive to implement – almost as costly as the Obama plan – and that it, too probably isn’t affordable during an economic downturn.” He added that “the healthcare cost containment strategies” proposed by the candidates “will require significant upfront investments before they begin to yield significant savings.”