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At Spotlight Health, part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, Judy Woodruffinterviewed five former secretaries of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).When David Mathews ran what was then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the administration of President Gerald Ford, the health portion of his annual budget was about $30 billion. Kathleen Sebelius, who stepped down from her post last year, oversaw a budget that exceeded $1 trillion.
Yet whether these senior officials were appointed by a Democratic or Republican president, they faced similar challenges. That may account for some basic agreements among them on the importance of health insurance. From that point of departure, each focuses on particular next steps needed to improve the health of Americans- from addressing our growing diversity to better engaging the private sector.
What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. To access the video, click on the Video link in the box to the right of the article online.
Judy Woodruff: I'm going to start out with a very easy question. What do you think of the Supreme Court decision [King v. Burwell] on Thursday, on the Affordable Care Act (ACA)?
David Mathews:Well, I think we've finally gotten the wrangle over, and we can settle down to actually implementing the act. It's great. We want everybody in the country to have insurance; they should have it. But having insurance doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have health care. And the next challenges are going to be in providing health care for a much larger population.
Louis Sullivan: I second that. I'm quite enthusiastic about the decision because you really can't have a wealthy nation if your people are not healthy. And this bill really provides access to care, and it will also give people the opportunity to use the health system in a wiser way than we have been. We are used to emergency care, crisis care. We need to have our citizens using the health care system in a logical proactive way, combining that with improving our health-our healthy lifestyles. And if we do that, then indeed we will be much healthier ten, twenty years from now than we are today.
Donna Shalala: Well, I think I'd start out by saying,...