Health Care Reform

The Congress has passed and the President has signed the new health care reform legislation. But, will it work?

Almost three years ago, I blogged on the need for a Key National Indicator System so we, as a nation, could track our progress using data, not diatribe. It’s happened. A provision buried on page 1,489 of the health insurance reform bill makes it real!

The Obama Administration’s favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), has launched a new project, “Doing What Works.” Led by Reece Rushing and Jitinder Kohli, it has three objectives:

We are introducing a Special Edition of The Business of Government Hour -- Leaders Speak -- focusing on human service delivery: the challenges being faced and innovations being forged in our local communities.

What does it mean to be a citizen in a Gov 2.0 world? President Obama’s FY 2011 budget is being dissected for its shift in the size and scope of government. But several initiatives in the budget, and things happening at the state and local levels, point to subtle -- but significant --shifts in the role of citizens in their government.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, like HUD, is undertaking significant transformation efforts with congressional support. Its initial “Transformation 21” plan was framed around its fiscal year 2010 budget. Subsequently, more is on the way, but it has not yet been fully released.

(a continuation from the December 23, 2009 blog on “Managing Performance”)

The Center is pleased to announce the publication of its Fall/Winter 2009 issue of The Business of Government magazine. This issue focuses on a range of public management issues facing us today. Whether it’s the federal government’s response to the recent financial crisis, the H1N1 flu, or its movement towards greater transparency and accountability, we’ve gathered thoughtful perspectives from some of the leading practitioners and academics in the field.

A series of presentations at the annual conference of the National Academy of Public Administration focused on the complicated management challenges all levels of government will be facing upon the passage of any health care reform legislation. As one participant noted: “There’s too much of a view that programs are self-executing and you just need more inspectors general and audits. . . that happened with the Recovery Act.” The consensus seemed to be that this assumption clearly won't work for health care reform!

Yesterday, I described how Eggers and O’Leary examined implementation of big government initiatives from a process perspective.