Sherry Glied, Dean of NYU Wagner, Discusses the Affordable Care Act

NYU Wagner Dean Sherry Glied delivered a talk about the Affordable Care Act to about 150 students, faculty and others April 24, providing her "classroom" – the Rudin Family Forum for Civic Dialogue at Wagner – with an absorbing and illuminating “insider” look at the landmark legislation’s path to enactment.

The lecture was drawn from her scholarly work as an economist as well as the important policy-making role she played in the Obama administration during the development of the ACA, the first major American healthcare reform law in decades.

“It is a remarkable feat that the U.S. got around to doing it,” Dean Glied said.

She noted, at one point in her video-aided dialogue, that policy analysts, health economists and other scholars were among the unsung contributors to the law's enactment. Their years of research and analysis of the health care system, she said, helped inform the Congressional Budget Office’s rapidly computed, accurate estimates of how many people would gain health insurance coverage under the law.

The well-founded estimates gave congressional supporters both enhanced credibility and confidence to believe that if they passed the legislation, it would make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. Dean Glied, for her part, said she believes that it already has.