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Health Care Transformation May Be an Enduring Legacy for Obama

The New York Times' Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear and The Washington Post's Kelsey Snell and Mike DeBonis both have pieces about how the Affordable Care Act is likely to endure to some extent despite the plans of President-elect Donald Trump and Congressional Republican leaders to repeal it.

The Washington Post reporters note that "Democratic opposition and complex Senate rules mean that core pieces of the 2010 health-care overhaul are likely to remain, including the legal framework for the individual mandate and pieces of the state exchanges the law created. Furthermore, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to preserve other key aspects, such as a ban on insurers denying coverage because of preexisting conditions and a requirement that insurers cover children under 26 on their parents’ plans."

The New York Times reporters profiled a hospital system in Indiana where, because of Obamacare,  "its leaders have started moving away from fee-for-service medicine, where every procedure, examination and prescription fetches a price. The emphasis now is on preventive care, on taking responsibility for the health of patients not only in the hospital, but also in the community." The impact from the ACA on how medical care is delivered is not likely to change.