- Bill George "The bill addresses only one of the four essential elements of health care. Beyond insuring the uninsured,cost, quality, and lifestyles are not addressed. Unless we focus on all four, we will continue to have a dysfunctional system with unaffordable costs."
- Richard Bohmer "We need to make a distinction between debating how it will be paid for and what the 'it' is that is paid for." He argues we need more change around how health care can be delivered, citing experiments with disease management programs, substituting nurse practitioners for physicians in certain circumstances, in-store clinics to treat simple diseases, and "experiments with IT to enable precise electronic communication between patients and doctors so that real medical discussions can be had at a distance."
- Regina Herzlinger "The costs of this legislation, more than $900 billion, will put another nail in the coffin of the U.S. economy and open the door to a government-controlled health care system that gravely injures the sick and the entrepreneurs who could help them, along the way. The problem? The absence of a way to control the costs that already cripple U.S. global competitiveness."
- Robert Huckman "The good news is that the bill tackles many important issues related to insurance coverage. The more sobering news is that addressing coverage issues shines a bright light on the more fundamental reform that still needs to occur -- improving the process by which medical care is actually delivered to patients."
In summary: Some good will come of this, but there are deeper issues which remain unaddressed. Professor Herzlinger's comments are particularly sobering.
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