US health reform debate is reaching critical phase, says expert

The battle over healthcare reform in the United States has reached a critical phase, says Simon Stevens, previously health adviser to the former British prime minister Tony Blair and now president of global health at UnitedHealth Group.

Mr Stevens, who also chairs the United Centre for Health Reform, was speaking in Liverpool last week at the annual conference of the NHS Confederation, ahead of a key meeting between the US president and the American Medical Association on 15 June.

The complexities of the current systems in the US, together with the need to convince a wide array of congressional committees, meant that “widespread system change will take a lot more …