Happy Birthday to EMBRACE! (And a Rebirth)

Today the EMBRACE healthcare plan turns 6 years old. It was published in the April 7th 2009 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. It may have missed the debate that finally resulted in the Affordable Care Act, but now that the ACA has been established it is time to go to the next step. It is time to resurrect this blog and start to promote EMBRACE!
No matter what we may think about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is clear that it was only a Band-Aid to a very broken system. In the next few weeks I will post various articles and links that explain some of the inherent flaws of the current system and the ACA’s unsuccessful attempt to fix it- and how EMBRACE will solve it.
As those who know the EMBRACE plan understand that, unlike the ACA or any of the so-called healthcare reform proposals around, EMBRACE was developed by healthcare professionals to fix the real problems of our healthcare system. The plan was developed with the understanding that fixing our current system cannot be accomplished by reforming insurance or increasing coverage alone.
A recent post on TPM explains one of the subtle issues that affect clinicians and their patients that was brought about because the ACA did not address the issue of the quality of insurance that it offers. It is no use to increase the number of people covered if those people cannot find a doctor or facility that accepts their insurance.
This issue is a predictable deficiency of the ACA that does not only involve Medicaid, but also the private insurance plans that are available on the Federal and state run exchanges.
With EMBRACE, everyone has the same coverage for Tier 1 (basic) services; a coverage that pays the same to providers no matter the patient (and there are no ‘networks’ of doctors that you have to belong to) . Private Tier 2 insurance (for non essential services) also provide more uniform and transparent coverage.