At town hall meetings in Oakland, Palo Alto and 10 other sites nationwide on Thursday, participants spoke out about their expectations for an overhaul of the U.S. health care system under President-elect Barack Obama, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The meetings were sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions.
In conjunction with the meetings, the organizations released a poll showing that U.S. residents' priority for health care reform is lower costs, while health care industry leaders cited access to health insurance coverage as their main goal for health care reform (Fernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21).
Prospects for Action
In addition, PBS' "NewsHour" included a discussion of potential hurdles to health care reform for the Obama administration. Guests included:
- Stuart Butler, vice president for domestic and economic policy at the Heritage Foundation;
- Chris Jennings, president of Jennings Policy Strategies and a former senior health policy adviser to President Clinton;
- Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans; and
- Uwe Reinhardt, professor of economics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University (Woodruff, "NewsHour," PBS, 11/20).