With the 113th Congress up and running and the president’s policy schedule filling up by the day, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health identified five things Americans would like the government to set as top health care priorities this year:
1. State exchanges. Fifty-five percent of respondents say state-based health insurance exchanges are a top priority for their lawmakers. With only 18 states and Washington, D.C., declaring they will create state exchanges, more information is needed on how federally run exchanges will operate in the remaining states. “This is the year of the health insurance exchange,” said David Colby of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a luncheon held Thursday at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The panelists, including Drew Altman, CEO of KFF, noted that governors are still split along partisan lines about the creation of exchanges.
