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Written by Craig Westover
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 07:36 |
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Dear Governor Pawlenty:
It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and somebody is making a phone call. Not to the White House. A child has spiked a fever of 104. Worried parents are trying to reach a doctor.
When people have medical emergencies or just simple medical questions, whether it's 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon, they don't care how the Health Care Access Fund is divvied up. They're worried. They want to talk to doctors they trust, find out what is wrong and have their doctors make it all better.
Public policy that helps that happen is good public policy, Governor. Public policy that hinders that happening is bad public policy.
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Written by Craig Westover
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 08:30 |
The Legislature charged the Transformation Task Force with reducing the cost of Minnesota's health care system by 20 percent by the year 2011, while increasing access to health care and improving quality. Should task force recommendations become law, state government and corporate health plans will make decisions about your medical care and set standards by which you conduct your everyday life.
For the layman, the most disturbing sections of the Transformation Task Force report are those that expand the concept of "public health" to include virtually any behavior with an impact on the cost of health care. But do Minnesotans really want to live in a state that requires "the active engagement of employers, schools, communities and the health care system" to enforce healthy behavior?
While claiming to be "market-driven" and "patient-centered," "competitive" and "focused on outcomes" and structured around "quality," "price transparency" and "value," the Transformation Task Force report is none of these. From the sow's ear of corporate socialism, one cannot stitch a silk purse "market-driven," "patient-centered" health care system.
The Health Care Transformation Task Force is not a starting point for reform; it is a dead end.
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Written by Craig Westover
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Wednesday, 19 March 2008 07:26 |
The Governor's Health Care Transformation Task Force is the centerpiece among several public-private committees that met between legislative sessions to "do something" about health care, and many of its recommendations are found in several House and Senate health care bills rapidly moving through the legislative committee process.
Observers of the Transformation Task Force portray it as a "love fest." Even critics praise the group's efforts. I have friends on the task force, and there are folks on it I respect. But I cannot in good conscience join the chorus of "Kumbaya." There is too much at stake.
My disagreement with the Transformation Task Force recommendations is not simply my preference for free-market solutions over government-run programs, nor even that I question the potential efficacy of task force recommendations (many of which are embedded in bills being rushed through the legislative process). My objection is more basic.
The devil is not in the details of the report, he's sitting in plain sight: The task force recommendations are a giant leap toward classical corporate socialism, a "friendly fascism," but fascism nonetheless.
The first of two columns tackling the Health Care Transformation Task Force appears on the Pioneer Press Opinion page today. The second will appear tomorrow.
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Thursday, 06 March 2008 13:01 |
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Henry Ford proposed that for efficiency's sake, all cars should be one color---black. Imagine that dictum as applied to Healthcare. Now imagine the government in control of your healthcare and able to apply it. That's the subject of David's Strom's latest Townhall Column.
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Written by Craig Westover
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Tuesday, 22 January 2008 19:59 |
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An essential part of the progressive vision, according to Ted Kennedy and others, is "an America where no citizen of any age fears the cost of health care." The answer Kennedy proposes is expanding Medicare to cover every citizen - from birth to the end of life.
Kennedy likes to point to Medicare as a "system that works." That is a debatable position, but let's for the sake of argument assume that it does. Does Kennedy understand why?
To the extent that it does, Medicare "works" because it depends on non-Medicare patients to pay the higher costs that produce the high quality healthcare host Medicare needs to survive. The parasitic nature of government-run health care applies to the much ballyhooed health care system of our neighbor to the north as well. The Canadian system depends on the United States to provide health care its government-run system is incapable of delivering.
The stories are numerous about the long wait times for routine treatments under Canada's system, but speaking at Hillsdale College, Canadian journalist Mark Steyn relates the "absolute logical reductio" of a government monopoly in health care: the ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 January 2008 02:15 )
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