Health care reform and Project Access NOW

Many people have asked us what the health care reform means for us: Will we no longer be needed? Will we go out of business? I wish we had a simple answer. Despite the health care reform becoming law, Project Access NOW will still need to be around, albeit with an evolving role.

First, the reform is going to take a significant amount of time to really start changing the face of healthcare as we know it. Folks won’t see benefit from the reform until 2 to 4 years from now, if not longer. We’re serving patients today. That the reform bill has been enacted doesn’t mean we no longer have to care for the uninsured – we do. The uninsured are among us and will be for many years.

Secondly, the reform is an experiment. The law will probably undergo changes, and what we’ll start seeing on the ground will likely be different than the current law.

Finally, in addition to serving the low-income uninsured, we are also a relational infrastructure. Writing and implementing policy are two different things, both of which take a lot of work. Project Access NOW works with people and organizations on both the policy development and implementation sides. We’re on the ground, helping to build links and relationships across systems – among stakeholders who are trying to create a better system while often not working together. As we work to build the infrastructure to implement health care reform, the need for our services persists.

Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Sincerely,

Linda Nilsen-Solares
Executive Director

(May 2010)