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Health care reform holds, but many details unspecified
CHICAGO — With the re-election of President Barack Obama and federal health care reform measures expected to stand, many specific regulations are largely unknown, an ophthalmic leader said here.
Regulations enumerated in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and June’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the health care mandate and other provisions of the law are largely unwritten and remain a mystery, David W. Parke II, MD, American Academy of Ophthalmology CEO, said during a news conference during the joint meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology.
“ACA is out there, but for about every page of legislation, there’s 20 to 40 pages of enabling regulations. Those regulations have only partially been written. Some that have been written are still in the comment period and will be changed further,” Parke said.
Additionally, Parke dispelled assumptions that the election of Mitt Romney would have involved the complete dismantling of the ACA.
“None of us really thought that was going to be the case unless there was total control by the Republican Party of all three houses, and for their sakes, if they were in control, a filibuster-free majority in the Senate,” he said. “We all know that there are two basic schools of approach to health care reform: one represented on one side of the aisle and one represented on the other.”
Parke said that health care reform is inevitable, given underlying factors such as costs, quality of care and access to care.
“The drivers of change are there. They’ve been there since the beginning,” he said. “If anything, they’ve only gotten more significant. And we all know that the biggest driver is cost.”
Currently, health care comprises more than $16 billion of the U.S. gross domestic product, and that figure is rising, Parke said.
“That’s unsustainable,” he said.
Disclosure: No products or services are mentioned that would require financial disclosure.
