CONCORD The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, will increase access to health care and reduce the number of uninsured, but will do little if anything to control costs or improve quality.

That was the underlying theme from both the keynote speaker and panelists Tuesday at the fourth annual New Hampshire Business Review Health Care Forum, which attracted nearly 300 business leaders, human resources executives and health care professionals to the Grappone Conference Center, all looking for insight into the complex legislation.

The Supreme Court is not going to take away the ACA, nor is November (election) going to take away ACA, said panelist Lucy Hodder, chair of the Health Care Practice Group at the law firm of Rath, Young & Pignatelli. The ACA is here to stay. It may be tinkered with, but if you do away with it, you still have to deal with costs.

Keynote speaker Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, based at Indiana University, told the crowd that the impact of the ACA may be overstated when it comes to the scope of changes needed in the health care system.

We have made some strides in terms of access, he said, but cost is a real issue, and we havent even touched on quality.

Carroll said the new health care law is primarily targeted at the uninsured. He said individuals who now get insurance through their employers, Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration or other government programs are not likely to notice much change as major provisions of the law take effect.

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the mandate to provide health insurance or pay a fine, and most companies with more than 50 employees already provide some form of coverage that would be acceptable under the law.

Things arent going to change that dramatically for most businesses, said panelist Chara Stevens, director of the Human Resources Council of New Hampshire. For the most part, its going to be business as usual.

The individual mandate to have health insurance and the expansion of Medicaid will improve access, but the problems of high cost and poor results are not being addressed despite the huge investment, Carroll said in an interview after the event.

The ACA is all about expanding access, he said. It does that with about $1 trillion more in spending over a decade. That investment will do little to improve outcomes or contain costs, he said.

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Panel Obamacare won8217t improve costs nor quality