The health care reform agenda is moving from high gear to warp speed. The pace in Washington continues to be increasingly dizzying, with hearings, meetings and spontaneous feedback sessions too numerous to mention -- or to attend.

Busy, Busy, Busy
Here's what we DID manage to squeeze in last week:

• Two meetings with Senate Finance Committee Chair Baucus (D-Mont.) and Committee staff about their recently released health care reform recommendations
  
  
• Meetings with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
  
  
• A high-level meeting at CMS with the top people under the incoming secretary to lay out our ideas on how independent practices could participate in gainsharing and quality improvement pilots
  
  
• Listened in to Kathleen Sebelius' first testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee
  
  
• Attended one of the first meetings of the health IT advisory committee on stimulus spending and IT strategies of the Obama administration

All this is just what we did before breakfast on Monday. Well, actually, it all happened before Wednesday. We also met with the CEO of GE, Jeff Imholt, who presented his company’s impressive health reform strategy -- they call it ‘healthyimagination,’ and it involves appropriate use criteria and cost savings ideas, in addition to continuing to invest in science and technology. I met with PHRMA CEO Billy Tauzin and Chair David Brennan, also CEO of Astra Zeneca on their strategy for reform. They emphasize promoting the patient-physician relationship and professionalism and lowering patient co-pays to increase adherence.

Impressions
So what are the impressions at the end of this week? Baucus and Grassley met with President Obama for lunch Wednesday and they excitedly shared with us after that reform is definitely the President’s #1 domestic policy priority (as it is for them), and that reform will happen this summer, with the House and Senate strategies ready for legislative mark-up and first hearings in June.

They all seem to believe that delivery system and payment reform will be easier to accomplish than will be the insurance reforms, coverage issues, and the financing and cost-containment issues that will ultimately pay for expanded access to care and improved quality.

Baucus emphasized that the lightning rod issue of the “public plan” is clearly still on the table, with labor and the Democratic left wing saying it is a deal-killer if it is not included, and with much of the business community, the Republican right wing and the insurance industry saying it is a deal-killer if it is included. I suspect the Dems will have to back off on, water down or delay this issue if we’re going to get reform done this summer.

*** Image from Flickr (Benimoto). ***