Impact
While Washington still is paralyzed by the government shutdown, my experience over the last several months with the Long-Term Care Commission shows that bi-partisan agreement is indeed possible. After several months of intense work with 14 fellow commissioners, we developed a report that makes realistic but important recommendations for change in an area of growing importance to taxpayers and an aging population.
And, of course, we were very focused on the run-up to the launch of the ObamaCare exchanges which, as we had predicted, were not ready for prime-time. Read on for more about our work in September:
Publications
USA Today published an op-ed by Grace-Marie: “ObamaCare Not Ready for Prime Time”
Grace-Marie wrote a commentary for the New York Times: Room for Debate: “It’s a Gigantic Shell Game.” It also was one of the most-read articles at RealClearPolitics.com
Forbes.com published two of our commentaries:
- “Health Matters: When Obamacare ‘Navigators’ Ask if You’re Qualified, You Should Ask Them About Identity Theft”
- “Health Matters: ObamaCare Workers Offering Help Also Threaten Identity Theft”
National Review Online published two of our commentaries:
We also published two posts to the Galen blog:
We also wrote commentaries for several local Virginia publications with warnings for consumers about “Navigating the new health law.”
Galen in the News
Grace-Marie was on “Fox & Friends” on September 18th to discuss the pitfalls of Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare.
Grace-Marie was quoted in numerous publications regarding her take on the Long-Term Care Commission report including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Health Care Finance News.
The Galen Institute was also on the airwaves with radio interviews around the country, including Jim Blasingame’s Small Business Advocate, the Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio, the Steve Malzberg Show with Allen West on Newsmax Radio, and City on a Hill with Diana Crews.
Speeches, Meetings and Events
House Speaker John Boehner appointed Grace-Marie as one of his three representatives to serve on the Long-Term Care Commission, and she spent long hours in meetings over the summer leading up to the release of the report and recommendations in September.
The commission had a statutory deadline to make recommendations to Congress by Sept. 12, when we released top-line recommendations. The full report was released during the final public meeting of the commission on Sept. 18 on Capitol Hill.
Here are links to the final documents to all of the commission’s reports:
- The Commission on Long-Term Care’s Report to Congress
- The news release about the Sept. 12 vote
- A top-line summary of the recommendations
- A link to the commission website with all of the testimonies the commission heard and other documents
- A transcript of Grace-Marie’s remarks from the Sept. 18 meeting
In addition, six of us commissioners wrote a separate letter to President Obama and the congressional leaders appointing us about the importance of budget neutrality in advancing the initiatives listed in the report.
Separately, our September Health Policy Series for Capitol Hill staffers focused on “ObamaCare Implementation: Delays, Deviations, Discrepancies, and Distortions” and featured speakers Chris Jacobs, Senior Policy Analyst with the Heritage Foundation, and Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies with the Cato Institute.
We facilitated our monthly State Leaders call — jointly hosted by Galen Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, and the State Policy Network — on “ObamaCare Costs.” Avik Roy and Yevgeniy Feyman of the Manhattan Institute discussed their work on cost analyses of coverage in the exchanges and how the law reshapes the market for individually-purchased health insurance.
We met with Members of Congress and staff on ideas for health policy initiatives, and we participated in numerous meetings and conference calls about Medicaid expansion, participated in meetings of the Repeal Coalition, and facilitated a meeting with policy colleagues to discuss new initiatives for market-based health reform.