House Republicans put forth The American Health Care Act on March 6. Jonathan Bush, CEO of athenahealth, was eager to voice his opinions on the legislation.
Mr. Bush separately weighed in on the AHCA with CNBC and Yahoo Finance. Here are four of his thoughts, according to the interviews.
1. Mr. Bush doesn't believe there is much of a difference between the AHCA and the ACA. "It's a tiny little trim," he told CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "It's 'stick an H in the ACA.' You know, create a little more room for the market, a little less [of a] guaranteed safety net, a little less role of the feds in every dollar amount. What's the difference, really?"
He went on to cite multiple parts of the ACA that are part of the AHCA. "One thing that remains in the Obamacare-to-AHCA transition that is important is straight Medicare payment to doctors is carefully designed to kind of shrink," he told CNBC.
His thoughts were echoed in an email Q&A with Yahoo Finance. "There are still many provisions that are retained — like the ability for young adults to stay on their parents' insurance until 26, and for the overall push from government to more closely align provider reimbursement with value vs. volume of services delivered," he wrote.
2. He believes the GOP will face multiple budget- and political-related obstacles as it advocates for the AHCA. "I think the net-net is they're trying to figure out how to pull back on the 'minimum required benefit' design so that the ... inevitability of price increases doesn't sort of go off into the future," Mr. Bush told CNBC. "That's hard for the [Congressional Budget Office] to calculate because how does the CBO calculate the emergence of market forces in a place where there haven't been any for years?"
3. Mr. Bush likes the idea of giving people more fiscal responsibility over their healthcare, but he believes healthcare has to become more "shoppable." "The new plan does offer a few glimmers of hope where Congress is trying to infuse market forces and 'shopping' into an industry that desperately needs it," he wrote to Yahoo Finance. "[H]owever, we can't expect people to behave like consumers knowing healthcare is fundamentally not 'shoppable.'"
To make healthcare more "shoppable," Mr. Bush suggested giving patients and providers more information on costs and quality, connecting care settings and putting healthcare on a national network.
4. In his opinion, it's too early to make any claims about how the AHCA could affect healthcare. "Ultimately, only time will tell in terms of how this new approach impacts patients, providers and the healthcare system at large," Mr. Bush wrote to Yahoo Finance.