So, sometimes it’s useful to look at how other countries have gone about reforming their healthcare policy. Obamacare is probably the most well known in recent years. Before Trump starting messing with it, that is.
Speaking at the Board of Healthcare Funders conference, Dr Liz Fowler, former special assistant to President Obama on healthcare and economic policy at the National Economic Council, said the three key lessons that came out of the American experience are:
She said in the early stages of Obamacare there was a lot of resistance, not only stakeholders in the healthcare sector, but also from the public, as many of them were comfortable with the cover they already had.
In addition, some of the major questions that needed to be asked were where universal health cover stood in regard to other domestic policy priorities and whether to build on existing healthcare programmes or completely replace the entire system.
“We also had to look at how to phase in major policy changes and early deliverables, and what the appropriate balance was between expanding cover and controlling costs.
“We’re not at universal cover yet, but we're on the right trajectory,” she said.