Health Reform: What Next?

The political rhetoric of the 2012 election suggested that Americans are deeply split over how to deliver and pay for health care. In fact, however, the election may have cleared the way for substantial reforms in health care delivery that will gradually enable the United States to finance effective health care for almost everyone at a sustainable cost. The election affirmed for the first time that almost everyone in the United States will have health insurance coverage and put to rest the idea that voters will tolerate radical change in the complex patchwork of health care financing that has evolved in the United States. The tasks remaining are improving the quality of health care delivered by increasing care coordination and reducing the growth of costs by moving away from fee-for-service delivery toward rewarding quality and value. These challenges are daunting but less ideohgically fraught than health coverage expansion.