For all those who question where to see a Republican alternative health care proposal let me share the following article that covers what former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has to say on this very vital topic.
One area that Obama fans must question is the failure to include any meaningful tort reform in any new plan. Have major campaign contributing trial lawyers taken that option off the negotiating table? Just thinking out loud!
Newt Gingrich: Health-Care Reform Plan
By Bryan McAffee
Democrats love to pull out the old card that the GOP just wants to oppose them and that we have nothing to offer in the debate for health-care reform. However, this is emphatically not true and I’d like to introduce you to Newt Gingrich’s health-care reform plan. Gingrich is one of the founders of the Center for Health Transformation, where you can learn more about what they propose to do to fix our health care system. There are a few key points that I think are worth discussing. Below the fold you will see Gingrich’s 6 Keys to Reforming Health-care.
1. Stop Paying the Crooks. First, we must dramatically reduce healthcare fraud within our current healthcare system. Outright fraud — criminal activity — accounts for as much as 10 percent of all healthcare spending. That is more than $200 billion every year. Medicare alone could account for as much as $40 billion a year. (Read about our latest CHT Press book, Stop Paying the Crooks, edited by Jim Frogue.)
2. Move from a Paper-based to an Electronic Health System. As it stands now, it is simply impossible to keep up with fraud in a paper-based system. An electronic system would free tens of billions of dollars to be spent on investing on the kind of modern system that will transform healthcare. In addition, it would dramatically increase our ability to eliminate costly medical errors and to accelerate the adoption of new solutions and breakthroughs.
3. Tax Reform. The savings realized through very deliberately and very systematically eliminating fraud could be used to provide tax incentives and vouchers that would help cover those Americans who currently can’t afford coverage. In addition, we need to expand tax incentives for insurance provided by small employers and the self-employed. Finally, elimination of capital gains taxes for investments in health-solution companies can greatly impact the creation advancement of new solutions that create better health at lower cost.
4. Create a Health-Based Health System. In essence, we must create a system that focuses on improving individual health. The best way to accomplish this is to find out what solutions are actually working today that save lives and save money and then design public policy to encourage their widespread adoption. For example, according to the Dartmouth Health Atlas, if the 6,000 hospitals in the country provided the same standard of care of the Intermountain or Mayo health clinics, Medicare alone would save 30 percent of total spending every year. We need to make best practices the minimum practice. We need the federal government and other healthcare stakeholders to consistently migrate to best practices that ensure quality, safety and better outcomes.
5. Reform Our Health Justice System. Currently, the U.S. civil justice system is the most expensive in the world — about double the average cost in virtually every other industrialized nation. But for all of the money spent, our civil justice system neither effectively compensates persons injured from medical negligence nor encourages the elimination of medical errors. Because physicians fear malpractice suits, defensive medicine (redundant, wasteful treatment designed to avoid lawsuits, not treat the patient) has become pervasive. CHT is developing a number of bold health-justice reforms including a “safe harbor” for physicians who followed clinical best practices in the treatment of a patient.
6. Invest in Scientific Research and Breakthroughs. We must accelerate and focus national efforts, re-engineer care delivery, and ultimately prevent diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes which are financially crippling our healthcare system.
I’m not sure if I agree with all of Newt’s proposals and ideas (read some of the rest of the website, there is some pretty good stuff there.) However, I think there are some things to take away here that Republicans need to do to offer a comprehensive opposition plan. First, I like concentrating on the private sector. Offering tax incentives and free-market approaches to encourage more efficiency and more coverage seems ideal to me. I especially like the idea of removing all capital gains tax for health-solution companies.
Newt also mentions the Health Justice System. He is right in that large tort awards leads to defensive and more expensive medicine. Certainly we want to protect consumers from negligence, but there needs to be some degree of tort reform to cap costs and cap mal-practice insurance. If the government wants to get into the insurance business, why don’t they just offer cheap, low-cost malpractice insurance to doctors, that would save billions each year. Tort reform is probably a non-start for most Democrats because the trial lawyer bar is one of the biggest Democrat voting blocs and donors out there. I actually knew a tort lawyer who was fired from his job because he once suggested on a local talk show that tort reform should be looked at.
What other suggestion would you suggest from a conservative view point? I think all of us agree that there are problems in the system, what are they and how can we fix them?
Larry,
“I’m not sure if I agree with all of Newt’s proposals and ideas (read some of the rest of the website, there is some pretty good stuff there.) However, I think there are some things to take away here that Republicans need to do to offer a comprehensive opposition plan”.
Why does it have to be a comprehensive opposition plan?
Obama has a committee with Republicans working on the reform. Why not introduce these ideas there and get a comprehensive consensus plan.
Both parties can take credit for it an eliminate the Republican concern that a Reform Obama plan will only benefit him and the Democrats. A consensus agreement would be good politics for us Republicans too.
The public is the real looser in this partisan fighting.
art.
While the health care issue is huge, Americans look at the entire scope of the president’s agenda that encompasses more than this single costly issue. Our national debt over the next decade is out of sight. They rightfully feel he is on a fast track without stopping to catch his breath regardless of its impact to the taxpaying citizens of this country. In fact I believe yesterday was tax freedom day. Let us catch a break.
Having been actively involved in negotiating multimillion dollar contracts where we had a 50 power loop on virtually every word in the custom specifications and boilerplate it is rather disheartening when our congressional representatives didn’t even take the time to read the 1,000 page House Bill.
“We divided it up among staff members” or words to that effect. Staff members who are not elected by, nor accountable to, John Q Citizen.
A few minutes ago I received an email from a supplier of specialized medical supplies that contained a letter from a physician. In that letter the Dr speaks about a family from Sweden who had to wait 8 months for a procedure. Is that what we have in store if the president’s plan is approved as currently drafted?
We can surely debate the key points in the current proposal(s. Although I was actively involved in the election of two sitting congressmen I did not seek access into the negotiations which took place before the break.
Let’s see what happens when they all return to DC
Larry,
The fact is that Americans elected Obama to do what he has on his agenda. Health reform was a campaign issue. This was not sneaked upon Americans. Obama was elected to do Health reform as well as other campaign promises. Republicans as I am are better off politically getting credit for consensus work than to oppose everything.
“A few minutes ago I received an email from a supplier of specialized medical supplies that contained a letter from a physician. In that letter the Dr speaks about a family from Sweden who had to wait 8 months for a procedure. Is that what we have in store if the president’s plan is approved as currently drafted?”
The current drafts are also worked on by Republicans. There is a committee made up of Dems and Reps. The drafts are not Obama’s draft plan.
As you know there is no Obama plan. There are several drafts being worked on. There are only points the President would like included in the final plan.
This is the problem. As there is no Obama plan, only drafts, wild claims and perceptions intended to scare the public are tossed in the wind because there is not plan to reference.
This is the tool of public manipulation against a reform plan.
Again, why oppose? Why not work together for the benefit of us all.
Why not cut straight to the point.
What if a popular president moves the agenda for the people; turns a financial crisis around; reforms a crooked Wall Street; creates jobs and eases the housing crisis? AND on top of all this works with congress to formulate a viable health care plan. I would think the opposing party would do and say anything to make achievement of these goals almost impossible. This is what we witness daily in the news reports. There are those that want to see the President fail and they have been dumb enough to shout this out. It is pure politics and the greater struggle for power. Hey guys, you lost!!!!! New Rules…
CJ
CJ, I wonder if you’ll still gloat when your grandchildren, while wiping the drool from your chin, will continue to carry the financial burden “your” president has saddled this country with? His “solution” to each problem is to take it over – GM, Chrysler, Banks, etc. – then print money to fix it. I choose not to have a federal government that controls EVERY aspect of my life, thank you very much. Your trainee president has never managed anything, much less a business or government entity. You’re correct – there are obviously “new rules”. Do you really want them to be socialist rules?
Many of Newts points are in agreement with what Obama wants
1. Stop Paying the Crooks -The President wants the legislation to save money by doing this, restoring the right to bargin for drug prices and trying to get rid of duplication of tests.
This has been attacked as a Medicare cut.
2. Move from a Paper-based to an Electronic Health System.
Funding to start this was included in the stimulus.
4. Create a Health-Based Health System
One of Obama’s main thoughts is we need to do preventative care.
6. Invest in Scientific Research and Breakthroughs.
I do not know if this has been included in the reform plan but some funding was aproved in the stimulus.
Tort reform I agree to a point with Newt, it needs to be addressed to achieve savings.
Does not really seem like Newt and the President are that far apart. What is wrong with the rest of the Republicans?
CJ.
I think The Pot Stirrer has more than adequately addressed your comments.
At times I feel as if we are in a candy store. From the outset Americans of all parties have asked the key question. “How do we intend to pay for all this?”
Is your solution redistribution of wealth?
Frankly I feel sorry for our grandkids who will bear the burden of this excessive spending that vastly exceeds our revenue.
At best president Obama will only be in office for 8 years but the debts he is ringing up today will be with us for decades to come.
The bottom line is power, power over the fastest growing population, poor,underserved,vunerable.
These are the population the government wants, not the working,self reliant,self sustaining. They make Govenement smaller, not bigger!
Taking from the self reliant and giving to the needy!
Watch as the needy grows like a weed, if this Health Care Reform passes, ya just need to look at Santa Ana!!
stop state restriction’s on health insurance companies within their states!
Thats it, “Competition”, is the key!.
Travis, I agree enough with the special tax breaks for insurance companies.
#’s 5 & 8
You don’t have to look to far into the future to see who is going to pay for Iraq and the TARP brought to you, me and the “grandkids.” Thank you #43, but who wants to remember those added cost? A certain party surely wants to pass the blame. The power has shifted, and yes, we will all pay just like we always have, but please #44 came into this game with a deficit and let’s remember how we all got that burden placed on us. Please!
CJ
Larry,
It’s not lost on me that after his “slap down” in 1998 he left office shortly thereafter, and targeted healthcare as the cause of the future. Only he simply collected millions of dollars insted of doing anything about it.
Newton is an interesting study, just like Bill Clinton and Barrack Oboma he was abandoned by his father, then 19 and left with a sixteen year old Mother. He decries the very services that gave him a chance in life. That is a fighting quality.
As for healthcare, he and his GOP brethren could use some schooling on how th American System works. I am stunned and embarrassed that a former speaker of the house does not understand the process of a bill becoming law. Of course he does, he is just a LIAR and A CHEATER, and AN ASSHOLE FOR LEAVING HIS DYING wife. But that being said, let’s look at this:
http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Bill.html
For this is how a bill becomes a law. and there is no BILL YET.
Michelle, again I agree with one of your main points: this is about power.
As Martin Luther King asserted:
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
We are being oppressed by the political class, corporations, and their lobbyists. Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock shared the lobbyists motto: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.
I don’t care if it is the “right” or the “left” who is in power at the time – the vast majority of us are pawns (less than pawns) in this game. Our elected representatives are unresponsive to our needs and/or demands.
Power – though recognized in our Constitution to be possessed by us, the citizens – is not really being shared with us. We as a people have grown complacent. A complacent populace is clay in the hands of dictators.
Look at the current situation. Individuals are standing up, rising up, and speaking out at Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings. They are being roundly criticized and ridiculed, by people at the highest levels of the Barack Obama administration. This man was elected and is supposed to be the president of “all Americans.”
He is at least complicit, at worst, an advocate of the attacks on the character and motivations of those freely exercising their rights, not just as Americans, but in accordance with the wording of our Constitution, God-given, inalienable rights. In United Nations jargon, that would be HUMAN RIGHTS.
(Of course, the United States’ Constitution is sufficient for me. I don’t need the UN to try to supersede God in determining the terminology used to describe what each of us knows in her or his heart.)
This whole health care debate is about POWER.
We cede our power when the politicians say “Trust me.”
As the crowd clamored at Claire McCaskill’s Town Hall,
“We don’t trust you!”
That’s where this movement is starting. And that is precisely why we the people are being attacked.
CJ.
I was not happy with the expenditures of Bush 43 but his investment in saving this country was considerably CHUMP CHANGE when matched up against the debt being created by the current occupant at 1600 PA Ave.
kenlaysnotdead.
We both know that Newt knows the proper flow of the legislative approval process. My sense is that he was taking a 1,000 plus page draft document and simplifying his key points for the average American.
As to your point that there is no bill yet. Thank God.
If not for citizens representing BOTH major parties, along with Independents, asking questions on the draft text our elected officials were about to give their stamp of approval on the simple expression “trust me.” President Obama wanted this plan apporved befor eht break knowing full well that it had not been vetted.
I seem to recall one major player named Nancy P. who had to race out and visit the Pope as she “fast tracked” another piece of the president’s agenda. That should never trump reading what you sign, especially as you are creating a burden for generations to come including some babies yet to be born.
As to Newt’s personal handling of his wife’s death. While you can surely express your opinion, that input derails this vital debate. As such while I shall not defend his action, I have no intention of commenting further.
Laguna. Very well stated. Thank you!
Larry Elder discusses the limitation of Medical Students enrolled each year as a way the AMA helps protect doctors jobs and salary;s. I have recently read that we face a crisis of having a huge shortage of family practitioners in the future. Incentives for people to go into medicine and growth of medical schools etc will aid in competition among doctors. Allow more students to go to med school. Dont elliminate based on full schools, make more room.
I am a Dem who ran into this website during a web search. I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of the dialogue. I’ve been looking for this kind of conversation on healthcare. I’m interested in what conservatives make of the fact that 60% of the total of 18% of GDP spent on health is from taxpayer dollars (with 10% of that 60% being due to unpaid taxes on employer provided healthcare). This means we don’t have any kind of free market, it seems to me. Our tax dollars and insurance dollars are going to support e and more expensive emergency care. Yet the addiction of businesses of all kinds to the public largess is such that there is tremendous resistence to any solution.
unnecessary procedures and such,and consumers don’t feel the bite. Unless we can change the incentives simply limiting tax dollars will just result in more people out of insuranc
Re. primary care/family medicine, the problem is that only 2% of US graduates are going into gen med, peds, or fam med. These primary care specialties were very populat in the 1990’s, but as specialist salries, driven by procedure-based reimbursement, have risen to as much as 7x that for primary care for many specialties,, while expectations of primary care have risen, students see primary care as undesirable. This despite the evidence that more primary care at national levels (comparing nations), US state levels, and US county levels produces higher quality for less cost.
I am a Dem who ran into this website during a web search. I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of the dialogue. I’ve been looking for this kind of conversation on healthcare. I’m interested in what conservatives make of the fact that 60% of the total of 18% of GDP spent on health is from taxpayer dollars (with 10% of that 60% being due to unpaid taxes on employer provided healthcare). This means we currently don’t have any kind of free market, it seems to me. So just using free market logic may not work.
Our tax dollars and insurance dollars are going to support unnecessary procedures and such and the public doesn’t have any incentive to choose carefully. Reigning in tax dollars will just result in fewer people with insurance and more expensive emergency care (unless we can live with lots of folks dying in the street). We have to find a way to incentivize people getting the right care (as Newt essentially alludes to). Yet the addiction of businesses of many kinds to the public largess is such that there is tremendous resistance to any solution.
Re. primary care/family medicine, the problem is that only 2% of US graduates are going into gen med, peds, or fam med. These primary care specialties were very popular in the 1990’s, but as specialist salaries, driven by procedure-based reimbursement, have risen to as much as 7x that for primary care for many specialties, and while expectations for primary care management of complex patients have risen, students see primary care as undesirable. This despite the evidence that more primary care at national levels (comparing nations), US state levels, and US county levels produces higher quality for less cost.
I’m interested in perspectives from the conservative end of things to these issues. Seems to me, we need all the thinking we can get.
I agree with all of the points Newt makes (to my own shock). But he has left out the most important cure for our health care system: repeal the anti-trust exemption that the health insurance industry enjoys. That will go a long way to solving many of the ills of the current system.