The Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs in King vs. Burwell. In the aftermath, Michael Cannon, a principal architect of the plaintiffs’ suit, wrote that
the battle to set in place a health care system that works for all Americans is far from over.
Cannon is absolutely right.
King was a victory because it prevented millions of people from losing insurance coverage. But it did not advance the cause of health care reform a centimeter with respect to the status quo ante King.
In The New Republic, I argue that the principal goals of health care reform remain to be fulfilled. Getting them fulfilled will require us to win new political fights to extend universal health insurance in every state. We need to keep working on innovative health care delivery models that control the growth in health care expenditures while improving the quality of care.
Above all, we need to get more empirical:
Health care reform has to be driven by results, not political beliefs. Programs should be selected based on evidence, such as the results of randomized clinical trials. Every new reform should collect rigorous data to determine whether it works.
