On Life Support

Waxman now has a new plan to press the administration: an oversight committee hearing that will be held around mid-June, the one-year anniversary of the Institute of Medicine reports. Though the main purpose is "to examine the federal government's failure to address the crisis in emergency care," as he puts it, the new Medicaid rule will surely come up as well. Kellerman is now helping prepare for that hearing. He worries that if the administration manages to implement the rule, it may attempt other federal funding cuts that Bush has mentioned in his budget proposals. "It's hard to imagine congressmen will just allow hospitals in their home districts to get wrecked," says Kellerman. But as he has learned, Washington's ways—its partisan politics, its backroom dealing—can be confounding. All he can do is continue to hammer home the message of what's at stake. "Either we'll figure it out and start addressing [emergency care] in a serious manner," he says, "or the system will fail catastrophically." Kellerman has sounded such alarms before to little avail. Now, though, he's got a slightly bigger megaphone.

© 2007