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Saturday, September 23, 2006
Gingrich has health care remedies ready
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in the finest spirit of representative democracy, returned from his high station in government last week to sit before a committee of the state’s legislators and plead his case for revolution.
Newt Gingrich, who once was third in line to be president of the United States and who one day may occupy the Oval Office, sat before the Georgia Health Care Transformation Senate Study Committee to argue that the nation’s health care system is on an unsustainable course. “Health care consumes 26 percent of all federal spending and is growing, dwarfing every other priority,” he said.
In response to a question from state Sen. Judson Hill (R-Marietta), who chairs the study committee, Gingrich offered three immediate recommendations for the Georgia General Assembly — things that can be done next year. All are based on technology and information.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who but for the fact that he’s the president’s brother would be a major presidential candidate himself in 2008, has sown the first seeds of health care revolution in Florida. “While the vast majority of states keep secret the cost and quality data they collect, Gov. Bush and former state Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Alan Levine have made Florida the first state in the country to openly report a wide range of cost and quality measures for hospitals and outpatient facilities,” said Gingrich.
Bush and Levine created two Web sites. “FloridaCompareCare.gov has a wealth of information on everything from hospital infection and mortality rates to the cost and frequency of surgical procedures performed,” Gingrich explained. “Knowing which hospitals have the highest and lowest death rates — and the highest and lowest prices — allows the consumer to choose the best-performing, highest-value hospital.” High quality and low prices often go together, he said.
The other site, MyFloridaRx.com, lists pricing information for the 50 most commonly prescribed drugs in Florida. In one Miami ZIP code, he said, 30 pills of one drug cost $91 at one store, $220 at another.
“Look at the two Florida sites and ask yourself why Georgians don’t get the same information,” Gingrich told the senators. “Georgians deserve to know price and quality for hospitals, drugstores, laboratories, doctors’ offices. Period.”
The information is or could be available. Compiling it so that Georgians can compare would cost about $1 million, Hill estimated later. “It’s the right thing to do,” said Hill. ” … We have to go to full transparency and accountability, and to lower costs, you have to go to transparency.”
That’s one Gingrich recommendation of what could be done next year. A second is to give consumers, physicians and pharmacists information and incentive to make responsible choices about prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Rather than co-pays, consumers would be reimbursed for the full cost of the least costly of the equally effective drugs. The result would be downward pressure on drug prices.
The third recommendation would be to build on a bill passed this year that allows electronic prescriptions. The aim is to push the paper out of the health care system. His recommendation is to provide a slightly higher reimbursement for electronic prescriptions and slightly less for paper to give doctors and pharmacists incentive to change.
Gingrich offered a host of other proposals as well as components of a revolution designed to promote wellness.Within a decade, he believes, 100 percent insurance coverage will be “achievable through market-based solutions, private and corporate efforts, tax incentives, direct public subsidies, strong community support and faith-based outreach programs. Personal responsibility, portability and health-care consumerism are the hallmarks of such a system.”
Georgia has actually already started the revolution. Efforts to manage diabetes, a project that includes 27 major employers, including the state, are one example. Others are in the works.
This is a perfect example of the difference that conservative governance makes. It’s not tinkering, though initial steps may seem small. But it’s small steps toward a revolution. It’s a prime example of the way conservatives should use government to change antiquated systems and undesirable behaviors, all toward improving the quality of our lives.
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