Dr. John Kitzhaber’s Unorthodox Ideas On Reforming Health Care
By J. Duncan Moore Jr.
Kaiser Health News
October 21, 2009
Q. Why are you running for governor again?
A. Costs for health care are going to continue to escalate and states will be overwhelmed. Whatever comes out of Congress this year is not going to have much impact on overall costs.
Q. How do you feel about the reform effort in Congress?
A. I’m not optimistic. I think Washington, D.C., is really badly broken. The discussion today is not about health care, it’s about both parties trying to position themselves for future majorities.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Checking-In-With/checking-in-with-kitzhaber.aspx
And…
Evaluating Health Care Plans: An Analysis of the Short- and Long-Term Fiscal Implications of Reform Plans
US Budget Watch
(supported by Pew Charitable Trusts)
October 19, 2009
Unfortunately, each bill making its way through Congress has employed at least one of these gimmicks:
* Timing Gimmicks
* Loopholes
* Omissions
* Bogus Offsets
… many provisions within the bills… would result in increases of overall health care costs.
http://crfb.org/document/evaluating-health-care-plans
The five reform bills passed by House and Senate committees will not control health care costs, and yet these are to be merged into one bill – that will not control health care costs.
What is the worst that could happen?
The second worst is that the final bill could be defeated and everyone would walk away with yet another failed attempt at reform. (Everyone would understand that very soon we would have to return to start over since the status quo is totally unacceptable.)
The very worst is that this bill could pass and everyone would walk away insisting that we have successfully reformed health care when all we have done is to establish an unnecessary and unethical ten-year long experiment that will cause financial hardship, physical suffering and even death – adverse outcomes that could be prevented with reform based on policy evidence rather than markets.
The goal of completing action on this bill before Christmas, pass or fail, and then walking away is not acceptable. We must set this bill aside and start fresh with a model that would prevent yet another decade of unnecessary grief. That model, of course, is an improved Medicare for all.