(You Can, Too)" on p. 14]. He envisions an increase in self-pay
patients if legislation is passed that increases the use of HSAs or
counts money spent in direct pricing toward tax deductibles.
"I'm a bit of a political skeptic, so I don't see any big changes com-
ing," says Mr. Poole. "But even if we keep going down the current
path, the prohibitive costs of both the exchange plans and the compa-
ny plans will push people to explore self-funding on an individual or
company level."
Will meaningful use be meaningful?
The Obama administration has worked off the "if you build it they will
come" belief that propping up reform programs with federal dollars
will make them work, says Mr. Strazzella. How will Mr. Trump's philo-
sophical shift to free market reform impact governmental backing of
programs such as Meaningful Use, the ACA-funded program that pro-
vides financial incentives to hospitals that implement electronic health
records to reduce paperwork and administrative burdens, cut costs
and reduce medical errors? "Hospitals might have to decide if the tech-
nology is worth having solely on the basis it makes them better
providers," says Mr. Strazzella.
Ms. Madhani says it's widely accepted among healthcare providers
that electronic record intraoperability is necessary to run an effective
health system. "There's been a lot of criticism about how the technol-
ogy is being implemented, and that's something the new administra-
tion will address," she says. "Everything's on the table, but I don't
think the financial incentive for EHR use is going away."
Medicare and Medicaid?
More questions and uncertainty surround what Mr. Trump and
Republican leaders plan to do with the nation's universal healthcare
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