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Saturday, February 10, 2007
Real progress in the works at state Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When he entered Emory University as a freshman from Miami almost three decades ago, state Sen. Judson H. Hill (R-Marietta) was determined to become an orthopedic surgeon.
Once there, though, he found himself drawn still to the passions of his youth, to political activism. “My family was very involved in political discussion, and in civics and in giving back to the community,” said Hill, whose mother was area director in Miami for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Beginning in grade school, and while at Emory, he volunteered in Republican presidential campaigns. “I became involved and it essentially came down to a recognition that I enjoyed politics more” than medicine.
So he got a degree in economics and followed his father and grandfather into law.
The confluence of interests in health care, economics and public policy has drawn him into one of the major debates confronting the nation — the quality, cost and availability of medical care. Legislation he’s sponsoring is among the “Big Idea” bills that are starting to flow from the work of study committees.
Without question, this is one of the more exciting sessions of the Georgia General Assembly — and next year will be, too — because critical mass is forming on big idea proposals, with health care, education and taxes among them. The critical mass is not around radical ideas, but around the concept that consumers with information, incentive and choice will behave rationally, and everybody will benefit, including taxpayers.
The nuts-and-bolts proposals are not radical, either. On Monday, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation will bring together U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, Gov. Sonny Perdue and CEOs of major corporations to sign an agreement to work together to make information available on hospital outcomes, costs and other concerns that consumers have.
The model exists in Florida. As former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Hill’s study committee in September: “Knowing which hospitals have the highest and lowest death rates — and the highest and lowest prices — allows the consumers to choose the best-performing, highest-value hospital.” High quality and low prices often exist in the same facility, said Gingrich, whose ideas show up everywhere, including the White House.
“I think you finally have critical mass on this idea,” said GPPF’s Kelly McCutchen. “We’ve been pushing consumerism for some time now,” he continued. “It is not surprising that education and health care are the two parts of our budget that are most out of control, because both are paid by third-party payers.” Hill’s bill, available on-line, is Senate Bill 28.
Action on big ideas can come very quickly. Think tanks like Georgia Public Policy Foundation, and those formed earlier nationally, like Heritage, Cato, Hoover, Pacific Research, Reason, Friedman and others have been idea mills. Organizations like the National Legislative Exchange Council, which state Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) recently headed, disseminated ideas and model legislation. And then, of course, bold governors experiment.
On issues like transportation options, health care, education and taxes and other ways of checking the growth of government, legislators are far better informed and ideas are far more quickly refined than was the case in years past. So when a conservative majority forms, it’s not necessary to stumble around acting on hunch and impulse.
The process benefits, too, from party-switchers, especially in the House. On health care, for example, there’s nobody in the General Assembly with more detailed knowledge of Georgia’s programs than state Rep. Mickey Channell (R-Greensboro). The same is true of state Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla) on the state tax code. Both men are former Democrats.
The combination of legislators like Hill and others, good conservatives who know their mind and who can stand up and argue the big ideas, when combined with the expertise and institutional knowledge of those who have been around and in leadership positions as Democrats, bode very well for Georgia.
Hang tight. The next few years could be among the most innovative and important in decades.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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