Senate FinComm schedules 3 roundtable healthcare sessions

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled three "roundtable discussions" on healthcare reform over the next month. The sessions will be a vehicle for lawmakers to hash out the potential impact of reforms with policy and industry experts.

As we've reported, Washington is pretty serious about healthcare reform in 2009. You'll be able to watch the roundtable discussions over the Internet by going to the committee's Web site. There will also be closed-door meetings on other days where much of the nitty-gritty details will be decided -- but, you won't be able to watch.

Here's the tentative schedule from the Finance Committee:

• April 21 - Reforming America's healthcare delivery system: this discussion will focus on improving the quality and efficiency of care through establishing value-based purchasing programs and strengthening the role of primary care, better managing patients with chronic illnesses, facilitating the use of comparative effectiveness research and other tools that support evidence-based care, reducing hospital readmissions, reforming payments to private plans in Medicare, and increasing transparency and reducing fraud and abuse in federally financed health care programs.
• May 5 - Increasing access to healthcare coverage: this conversation will focus on potential policies to expand healthcare coverage to all Americans including proposals to strengthen the healthcare safety net, expand public healthcare programs, expand access to private health coverage by creating premium subsidies for low-income Americans and reform the individual and small group health insurance markets, create tax credits for small businesses to afford insurance, make it easier to shop for and find affordable coverage options, and focus on the prevention of disease and promotion of healthy lifestyles.
• May 14 - Financing comprehensive healthcare reform: this discussion will focus on policies to finance the cost of investing in comprehensive healthcare reform.