But by late in the week, the six stakeholder groups seemed to face significant blowback from their constituent members and did an about-face of sorts.
Richard Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been “spun way away from the original intent” and that “there has been a tremendous amount of confusion and, frankly, a lot of political spin.”
AHA and AHIP sought to clarify late this week that they had agreed to squeeze health spending so the annual rate of growth would eventually be 1.5 percentage points lower.
Insiders have reported that the confusion and misinformation was largely due to the fact that the White House event was very hastily put together. Though the six groups have been working quietly for several weeks on a savings plan, they did not have much in the way of specifics and learned late last week that the White House wanted to go public with the coalition. The groups reiterated, though, that they are enthusiastic about the eventual cost savings to which they have committed.
