ABSTRACT
The drumbeat to do healthcare reform culminated in 2010 with passage of landmark legislation whose 2,700 pages purported to “fix the system.” For instance, the health insurance exchanges are so complex that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has recently offered $201 million in grants to support "marketplace navigators", adding to the bloat of healthcare spending that's a direct result of an overly complex policy. There is a role for health policy in creating a patient-centric, transparent, accountable healthcare system. Most of the discussion centered on two major elements of the legislation: ACOs and state-based insurance exchanges. The extent to which the pharmaceutical and medical device industries are regulated has consistently increased over the years. The FDA’s removal of Avastin’s indication for breast cancer is a lagging indicator. There was never a time the people could afford to put six million jobs at risk—and certainly not now.
