Doug Hastings, Chair of the Firm's Board of Directors and a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article titled "Legal Challenge Tests Already-Accepted Changes in Health Care."
Following is an excerpt:
Often overlooked in the Supreme Court challenge to the health-care law are changes that hospitals, doctors and insurers had been moving toward even before the law was passed in 2010.
Some of these could be halted if the court throws out the Affordable Care Act, or hobbled if the justices excise parts of it, experts say.
The changes include increasing the role of primary care, especially for low-income patients; forcing hospitals and doctors to work together closely; and reducing pay to hospitals if they don't meet patients' expectations or outcome benchmarks set by the government. ?...
"I don't think we'd be where we are today in accountable care but for the Affordable Care Act," said Douglas Hastings, a health-care lawyer in Washington. He noted that nearly half of all people in the country with coverage get it through the government. "When I sit in on meetings with private payers, they say, 'We model a lot on what Medicare does.' Accountable care may still move forward in the private market, but if this law is deemed unconstitutional, it slows down or stops the momentum."
