March 31, 2010: I had the opportunity to witness the Senate vote on the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 last Thursday afternoon, thanks to Lauren Gilchrist who is Senator Franken’s health Legislative aide. Lauren is an MPH graduate of the University of Minnesota and one of my former students. I literally raced to the hill, she grabbed a pass for me and off we went! Two different groups of people asked me, “Do you know what bill they are voting on?” Ah, yes, I do!
It was an historic moment but much more subdued than the raucous House vote which I watched on CSPAN, which included loud roars and cheers for Nancy Pelosi. The Senate kept its decorum – no shouting or cheering. Only a small applause and then all was done.
I worked for the US Senate in the early 1980s, and being there brought back a lot of memories of working around the clock during the early implementation of DRGs, PSROs, and Social HMOs. One of my cherished moments was watching a debate on Medicare between Senator Durenberger and Senator Kennedy on the Senate floor. I met many colleagues during that time who have devoted their careers to improving health and health care. I guess we have a few more years of work to do!
Now we face the process of figuring out what is in the bill, and waiting for direction from the many federal agencies responsible for implementation. SHADAC will be doing the best we can to help states think about next steps in reform and how best to monitor and evaluate expansions. Stay tuned for more updates.
Lynn
P.S. Kaiser Family Foundation has compiled some useful resources to summarize the components of this legislation, available at http://healthreform.kff.org/.