By Vincent Lim
Judith Feder, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the U.S. health insurance system, discussed the Affordable Care Act and Medicare on April 14 at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center as part of the 2011 USC Schaeffer Center seminar series.
Feder is a professor at Georgetown Public Policy Institute, where she served as dean from 1999 to 2008. She previously served in former President Bill Clinton’s administration as the staff director of the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care and the principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Drawing on her political experience and health policy expertise, Feder provided an overview of the 2010 health reform law and described the challenges facing those who remain uninsured.
She stated that the majority of uninsured individuals in the United States are employees who do not receive insurance from their employers.
“When you look at the uninsured, they’re disproportionately low- and modest-wage workers,” Feder said.
These uninsured low-wage workers struggle to find affordable private plan insurance outside of the employer-based health insurance market where they often are asked to pay higher premiums or may be denied coverage entirely, Feder noted.
“It is not a safety net of any kind,” Feder said. “Low- and modest-wage workers are not getting coverage through their job and not getting Medicaid.”