First steps on health care reform
There are 3 comments for this page [ View ]Tuesday, April 1, 2008
For most Utahns, the issue of health care reform boils down to basic observations: It costs too much, insurance is expensive and/or hard to come by, and deciding which doctors and hospitals are the best takes ridiculous amounts of research.
That's why Gov. Jon Huntsman has put such an emphasis on achieving actual health care reform in Utah over the coming years. He understands Utahns are frustrated, that the present health care system hampers the state's economic well-being, and that he and the Legislature are in a unique position to do some good in this regard.
Toward that end, the state's leaders are forming a legislative task force to investigate avenues of possible reform in health care. And the first batch of appointees to that committee thrusts a trio of Top of Utah lawmakers into prominent positions: Sens. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, will co-chair the task force, and Peter Knudson, R-Brigham City, and Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, will serve as members from the Senate. The House has yet to announce its members who will serve on the committee.
The inclusion of these lawmakers is a good first sign. Each has a reputation as being level-headed, get-things-done pragmatists. That's just the type of lawmakers we'll need to solicit advice and to subsequently craft such complex and potentially far-reaching legislation. (It doesn't hurt that Knudson's an orthodontist; he has a view of health care from the inside.)
We hope the House makes equally promising appointments. Utahns deserve the best people tackling this issue. So far, we're off to a good start.
Comments
Health care reform studies in this state as well as the country will always conclude that it is be "big business" until we honestly consider socialized medicine.
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Health Savings Accounts are the answer for most people. That should be the mandate: that they be available to everyone. Suddenly, people can afford their care, choose their care. Costs will start falling. Then we can figure out how to help the few left who can't pay by assisting only them. Socialized medicine (assisting everyone) only assures eventual limits on care because it will be very expensive and with little incentive to go into the field. If you really look at England and Canada, socialized medicine means almost everyone is worse off.