Obama's Deal and Ok, He Signed it Now What?

Last week our documentary was Cheney's Law and this week we saw Obama's Deal. I mentioned two of the other possible Frontline Documentaries I could have assigned for this week Sick Around America and Sick Around the World, policy-wise they may have been more interesting, but I think that Obama's Deal complements what we saw last week and the theoretical readings very well. I am not going to say much about the documentary because I think this is one of the weeks where it was clear why I chose to assign it. Did anything about the "story of healthcare reform" surprise you? Did you see any of the theories of policy choice Peters discusses in the readings come to fruition in the process of healthcare reform? What do you think of the final bill? Were there any policy alternatives passed over in the process of writing the bill that you would have liked to see included in the final law? Finally, what do you think of the relationship between policy and politics in the passage of healthcare reform?

The podcast "Ok, He Signed it Now What?" reiterates much of what both the documentary and the chapter from CQ researcher said about healthcare reform. I think the podcast makes clear that the bill we ended up with is very different from what the Obama Administration initially set out to do. Of course, that does not mean that there is nothing "good" in the bill. I think the biggest concern among health care policy experts is that the bill does very little to stem the rise in health care costs. There is some funding for pilot studies (policy experiments carried out on a small scale) that attempt to evaluate some possible cost-cutting measures. hopefully some of them will show promising results.

Of course, there is more to health care policy than the Affordable Care Act. Peters' chapter on health care policy provides a good overview of all of the different ways that public policies affect health care. If you have an interest in Medicaid, Medicare, or drug regulation, Peters' chapter 11 is a good place to start.