Many top health care executives attended President Obama’s visit designed to rally support for ObamaCare in the wake of the disastrous rollout of the website marketplace consumers must use to buy plans and determine eligibility for federal subsidies. Among the executives was Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts CEO Andrew Dreyfus, who gave his take on the event, and what the launch of Obamacare will look like in the rearview mirror.
Will Obama get any good mileage out of this visit, or will it be discounted by critics who consider Massachusetts to be LaLa land?
I hope it’s a reminder that what’s unique about Masssachusetts is not the structure of the law but the broad coalition that supported it.. People outside of Massachusetts tend to label us as a liberal state that’s not a model for the country but when you look at the history of health reform there was a broad spectrum of views that contributed to it – left, right, Democrat, Republican, business and consumer advocates.
Many of the features of our current market were created under Governor Weld and Charlie Baker, supported by Governor Cellucci and then Governor Romney. While Mass. Republicans are left of national Republicans, I still think there was a diversity of opinion.
Is the takeaway from this event that health reform wasn’t perfect here on day one either?
The President is focusing on the success of the enrollment here, which started slowly and it took awhile to get going and that’s true. I tend to view big government and social policy changes in a long view over years — but years and the 24-hour news cycle don’t always mesh.
Date: Oct 30, 2013