The Fate of Health Care Reform Is Yet to be Written – But Here’s What We Think We Know
Last year, when I was giving teach-ins about the health care reform law, I met a woman with an all-too-typical problem. She falls into the Medicare Part D coverage gap, a.k.a. “the donut hole.” Because she must buy so many costly prescription drugs, she runs out of her coverage in June of each year and must pay for her medicine out-of-pocket after that.
But then health care reform became law. When I last saw her at one of my events, she had already received her rebate check for $250, and was thrilled to find out that when she hit the end of her coverage, her drugs would be 50% off this year, and even less in subsequent years until the donut hole was finally closed.
But with the news out of Washington, you can understand how she must feel. Should she even bothering to plan on being able to afford her prescription drugs for the whole year this time, or is a full repeal of the health care reform we worked so hard to pass last year really going to happen?
In the short term, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean either that the political theater that the House of Representatives is enacting soon doesn’t have serious repercussions that could lead to existential threats to the change we fought for last year.