Consult experts in health care policy

As our representatives in Congress continue to work on altering the Affordable Care Act, I hope they seek out and make use of the best information available about what works and what doesn't. After all, health care policy is both critical and complicated.

One source of quality information is the academic community. Right here in Chicago, for example, professors at the Kellogg School of Northwestern University specialize in health enterprise management. They have been researching and following U.S. healthcare policy for decades, and they understand how it affects all the players, including the insurance industry.

Politicians are not experts in this field, and should consult with those who are.

For those elected officials who think they can simply repeal the ACA without replacing it with something better, I hope they will remember that before the law went into effect, many families were one serious illness away from losing their livelihoods and their savings. Pushing more people into poverty affects more than just those people - it affects our entire society.

Diane Dassow

Lombard