President Rejects Health Care Proposal
By Kevin Freking, Associated Press
The Herald-Sun
March 14, 2007
The Bush administration on Wednesday rejected key recommendations from a citizens’ group (Citizens’ Health Care Working Group) asked by Congress to find out people’s health care wishes.
The group released its report Sept. 29 after hearing from about 6,500 people at 84 meetings.
The task force called for a guaranteed package of health benefits for everyone. It urged creation of an independent, nonpartisan group to select those benefits, such as an annual breast cancer exam or physical.
The group did not answer the hard question of how the government should pay for the benefits, but said people believe that there is enough money to make the changes. The group said the government should first transfer money from other programs to pay for the benefits.
(Health and Human Services Secretary Michael) Leavitt said the administration agrees it is important to make health care more affordable and expand insurance coverage. But he disagreed with the concept of a national commission to define coverage.
“A nationally determined set of core health benefits would place important decision-making about a person’s health care in the control of federal appointees, rather than allowing the consumer to choose the benefits that best meet their needs,” Leavitt said.
The group “chose an approach based on mandates and government intervention rather than an approach emphasizing consumer choice and options,” Leavitt said.
http://www.heraldsun.com/nationworld/14-829396.cfm
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Quoting from the final report of the Working Group: “The overriding message was consistent across every venue we explored: Americans should have a health care system where everyone participates, regardless of their financial resources or health status, with benefits that are sufficiently comprehensive to ensure access to appropriate, high-quality care without endangering individual or family financial security.”
The Working Group recommended defining the core benefits and services that will be assured to all Americans: “To define core benefits and services for all Americans, the best methods must be applied in a transparent process. Consumer participation is critical to ensuring public trust in the process and essential for ensuring that personal values and preferences are taken into consideration in coverage decisions. The group making decisions should be established as a public/private entity to insulate it from both political and financial influence. The group should be an ongoing entity with stable funding, to guarantee its independence and to assure that the benefits continue to reflect advances in medical research and practice. Evidence used to make decisions about coverage can contribute to improvements in the overall efficiency of health care delivery and help patients and providers make informed decisions. Identifying core benefits can help make all health care more effective and efficient, helping to control health care costs overall.”
Defining core benefits is controversial. What beneficial services would you omit? Presumably the purpose would be to control the costs of the insurance product, whether a private plan or public program. There are far better mechanisms for controlling spending, for instance those embodied in the single payer model, that would not necessitate the exclusion of any reasonable beneficial health care services.
The Bush administration is correct to object to a federal process that incidentally might lead to the exclusion of beneficial health services for those with needs. But where they are clearly wrong is that they used this technicality as an excuse to walk away from the overriding message in this report: appropriate, high-quality care for everyone without endangering individual or family financial security.
That goal cannot be accomplished without government playing some role. We are now at a point that the political process is primed to define precisely what that role should be. Those politicians who would walk away from this process should. We need real leaders who want to bring an end to the suffering and death caused by our dysfunctional system.