WASHINGTON – New analyses of the Senate HELP and Finance Committees’ Health Reform proposals examine significant legal changes to the financing and delivery of health care included in these measures. The analyses are part of an ongoing project of The George Washington University Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program, within the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS), to advance public understanding of the legal dimensions of national health reform.

 

Building on the comparative analyses of previous health reform proposals, the analysis of the Senate HELP Committee’s Affordable Health Choices Act (S. 1679) focuses on legal changes to the structure of the individual and group insurance markets and related coverage provisions. For the Chairman’s Mark of the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 (S. 1796), the analysis includes a comprehensive examination of the key legal changes that impact not only coverage, but the ways in which health care is organized and delivered.

 

“This analysis reflects the enormous progress toward health reform that has been made over the past weeks. With the merger of these two bills, the House and Senate are poised to launch a historic national policy debate,” said Sara Rosenbaum, Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and Chair of the Department of Health Policy. Professor Jane Hyatt Thorpe, who directs the comparative analysis project for the Hirsh Program, added, “These analyses examine the critical legal issues that will largely define the debate, and are designed to help policy makers, health professionals, and consumers understand their scope and meaning.”  

 

The comparative analyses use a special health reform legal taxonomy developed by GW Hirsh Program faculty and staff. The taxonomy is an analytic tool that provides a uniform and consistent mechanism for understanding in detail the key elements of health reform, including access, coverage, affordability, quality, health, financing, and the organization of health care markets, across the various proposals. The taxonomy is used to generate an analytic and comparative analysis of the various proposals that can be viewed independently or comparatively (side by side) in a user-friendly format to provide a consistent and comparative understanding of each legislative proposal.

 

In addition to the Senate HELP Committee’s Affordable Health Choices Act and the Senate Finance Chairman’s Mark of the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, the taxonomy has been used to analyze the House Tri-Committee Bill, The America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200); the Healthy Americans Act (S. 391); the Patient’s Choice Act (S. 1099); and the American Health Security Act of 2009 (S. 703). Future additions will include legislative proposals as they emerge from the Senate and Congress. The comparative analysis and interactive tool is available on the Department of Health Policy’s Web site at www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy/healthreform/.

 

 

The Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program, one of the largest law and health policy educational endeavors in the nation, was established in 1997 and endowed by Dr. and Mrs. Harold and Jane Hirsh.   Located in The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services Department of Health Policy, the program offers unique educational opportunities designed to provide a solid grounding in health law and policy to candidates for law degrees, practicing lawyers who seek to specialize in health law and policy, and health policy students. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the program advances understanding of how the law influences all phases of health care, health policy and public health, and how the changing health care system affects traditional areas of the law. The program also prepares participants for a broad range of health law-related careers. 

For more information on the Hirsh Program, visit www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy/Academics/hirshHealthLaw/index.cfm. For more information on the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy, visit www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy.

 

The George Washington University Medical Center is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary academic health center that has consistently provided high-quality medical care in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area since 1824. The Medical Center comprises the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the 11th oldest medical school in the country; the School of Public Health and Health Services, the only such school in the nation’s capital; GW Hospital, jointly owned and operated by a partnership between The George Washington University and a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, Inc.; and the GW Medical Faculty Associates, an independent faculty practice plan. For more information on GWUMC, visit www.gwumc.edu.