This article was first published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal on December 16, 2013.

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” — Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

The countdown to 2014 has begun. In the days to come, millions of Americans will choreograph exactly where to be at midnight on New Year’s Eve, full of resolutions and expectations for the coming year. This January 1 holds a special significance for our country, as the dropping of that massive 11,875-pound ball in New York City’s Times Square represents what many have for four years hoped to be the heralding of an epic transformation in our nation’s health care. Though unable to predict the future as in fairy tales of old, the descent of that Waterford crystal ball marks the coming of age of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), still shrouded in controversy and fighting for a foothold on which to support itself. … Read more →