White House healthcare summit
On March 5, President Obama and his healthcare reform team hosted a White House Forum on Health Reform, bringing together a select group of policymakers and representatives from the full spectrum of healthcare system stakeholder groups.
In the opening session, firefighter Travis Ulerick of Dublin, Ind., talked about the 9,000 community discussions on healthcare that were held across the country this past winter and included 30,000 Americans, and handed the President the report the HHS compiled from those sessions.
The President then clearly laid out the problems caused by the skyrocketing costs of healthcare coverage and other issues inherent in the current system, and tasked the entire gathering with getting to work on finding solutions.
Small Business Majority CEO John Arensmeyer was honored to be invited to participate in one of the panels held in the breakout sessions. His panel was moderated by Nancy-Ann DeParle (the new director of the White House Office of Health Reform) and Diana Farrell (deputy director of the National Economic Council and deputy economic advisor to the President), and included the following attendees:
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
AFL-CIO, Gerry Shea
Small Business Majority, John Arensmeyer
American Medical Association, Nancy Nielsen
PhRMA, Billy Tauzin
National Indian Health Board, Stacey Bohlen
National Association of People Living with AIDS, Frank Oldham
Much of the discussion centered on the critical need for cost containment as part of the overall reform package. A few of John’s comments were picked up by the media in coverage of the summit the next day:
From the Washington Post: "'The status quo is worse than virtually any of the proposals we see out there,' John Arensmeyer, founder of Small Business Majority, said during one of five breakout sessions."
And in Roll Call: “In a breakout session attended by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), among others, ‘there was a remarkable consensus around the fact that getting healthcare reform done now is integral to economic recovery,’ said John Arensmeyer, the CEO of Small Business Majority. ‘There was agreement that there are no absolutes in terms of a solution, and the focus can’t be on ideology.’”
In the closing session of the four-hour summit, which took place in the East Room of the White House, President Obama urged Congressional leaders to work together to find a comprehensive national healthcare solution now. Before he took general questions and comments, he was joined by Sen. Ted Kennedy, who exhorted the group to get it done, and pledged to give his all to make that happen.
Watch the opening and closing sessions.
View the White House photographer’s slideshow.
