Supreme Court Ruling

By now you’ve had some time to think about the Supreme Court and their ruling regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Whether you agree with the outcome or not, the decision provides some clarity about the path we’re on, at least in the short run: PPACA is the law of the land.

Next it will be up to the federal agencies to enact the law and to provide guidance on the regulations that are still undefined. As before, you can count on The Alliance to help you stay on top of the most critical issues, and to provide employer input to help shape implementation. Next month, our Alliance Learning Circle will feature John Barlament, partner in the employee benefits group at Quarles and Brady, who will review the information you need to know now.

Over the next several months, we’ll be tracking regulations related to employer responsibility provisions and those elements of the law that align most closely with the mission of The Alliance:

• Value-based purchasing: Medicare will intensify its value-based purchasing efforts to reward value, much as The Alliance has been doing for the past 10 years through our performance-based reimbursement program. We’ll look for opportunities to align our efforts to have the greatest market impact.
• Transparency of information: PPACA requires greater transparency of information to help consumers and employers make more informed decisions. The Alliance will continue our involvement on the committees charged with defining better methods to measure clinician performance and to assess patient safety and care coordination.
• Exchanges: The development of exchanges will impact the market for all purchasers and consumers. It’s important for employers to weigh in on the design of exchanges to avoid unintended consequences and market sub optimization.

The election in November is another potential crossroad for PPACA. To help you make a more informed decision, we recently conducted a survey of all candidates running for office this fall to understand their perspective on health care reform and other topics of interest. We’ll be sharing these results with you in the next few weeks.

As a member of The Alliance, you have many resources at your disposal including The Alliance Board of Directors and Health Policy Committee. Together, we’ll seek to minimize the challenges and optimize the opportunities toward our shared goal of better value health care.