The Trojan Horse That’s Killing Healthcare Reform
President Obama said something at his White House healthcare event last week that offers a disturbing hint of our future under his vision of health reform.

He suggested one way to save costs is not to spend on procedures that “evidence shows [are] not necessarily going to improve care” for the sick and the dying.

“Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” the President said.

Maybe.  But the question is, who decides?  

A Bureaucrat’s Concern Isn’t You, It’s the Government’s Bottom Line

Who decides if those extra dollars will or will not be spent on your care or the care of someone you love?  Under the plan advocated by President Obama and his allies, that someone will be a government bureaucrat.  

And even if that bureaucrat has the best of intentions, and even if he does his job well -- especially if he does his job well -- his main concern won’t be you or your loved one.

His only concern, if he’s doing his job right, will be for the government’s bottom line.

It’s his choice, not yours.  Surgery costs too much.  Make do with the painkiller.

Instead of Figuring Out What Can Be Done, We’re Debating the Government Option

What’s most tragic about the health reform options being debated today is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

I have spent the past six years since founding the Center for Health Transformation studying our healthcare system, and finding out what works and what doesn’t work.

I’ve spoken to literally thousands of doctors, patients, hospital administrators and other health professionals.  There is widespread agreement over steps we could take now to deliver more choices of greater quality at lower cost to every American.

But instead of focusing on creating a bipartisan consensus, President Obama and his allies have introduced the Trojan Horse of a “public option” in health reform.

Think Government Will Create a Level Playing Field in Healthcare?  Look at the Auto Industry

Supporters of the public plan option say it would be just one choice among many; a government plan to “compete” with private health insurance plans.

But if you think for a moment that the Democratic establishment in Washington is going to create a government healthcare plan that competes on a level playing field with private insurance, just take a look at what they did with the auto industry.

They rigged the game.  They gave their union allies 55 percent of Chrysler and cheated the retired teachers and police officers who had invested in the company.  Then they gave $50 billion in the taxpayers’ money to GM to prop it up.  Meanwhile, the third of the once-Big Three, Ford, is left to fend for itself.  Is that a level playing field?

The Public Option as a Strategy to Achieve Nationalized Healthcare

The main argument for a government option is that private insurance is too expensive.  To expand coverage, Americans need an affordable alternative.

But in order to offer an affordable alternative, the government has to dramatically underprice private plans.  Of course, government, unlike a private company that must meet its budget in order to stay in business, can endlessly subsidize its plan.

And the result?  Depending on how great the government subsidy, the Lewin Group, a healthcare policy research firm, estimated that as many as 119 million currently insured Americans would drop private coverage and enroll in the government plan.

The private insurance market would gradually disappear.  And if you think this is an irrational fear, listen to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a supporter of the public option.  Rep. Schakowsky proudly says that private insurers “have every reason to be frightened” by a government plan, because it is a “strategy for getting [to a single-payer system], and I believe we will.”

So Far, $22 Million Has Been Spent On TV Ads.  And What Do We Have To Show For It?

Americans are justifiably dissatisfied with our healthcare system.  Healthcare is too expensive.  Millions of Americans can’t get health insurance.  And too often what we can get doesn’t promote better health and doesn’t deliver the best possible care.

So far, groups on both sides of this debate have spent $22 million on television commercials -- more than was spent in the entire battle over Clinton healthcare reform in the 1990s.  

We’re spending lots of money, but the focus on the government plan has kept us from finding agreement in areas where we can make a real difference for Americans.

Democrats and Republicans Can Agree On Modernizing the System and Ending Healthcare Fraud

There is widespread agreement, for instance, that electronic medical records are the future.  President Obama and I both share this view.  They will be the primary method of record keeping in the future, and the faster we get to that future the more lives we will save, the more efficient our health system will be and the cheaper it will be.

Another area in which Democrats and Republicans should easily be able to find common ground is in fighting healthcare fraud.  

And if you think this is just tinkering around the edges of healthcare reform, you’re wrong.  Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a doctor, believes that fully one-third of all health spending is wasted on defensive medicine, red tape and outright fraud.  In a system that will spend $2.5 trillion this year, that means that more than $800 billion will go to unnecessary, unproductive and fully preventable spending.

For more information on how we can improve our healthcare by eliminating fraud, look for my book with Center For Health Transformation Vice President, Director of State Policy Jim Frogue entitled Stop Paying the Crooks: Solutions to End the Fraud That Threatens Your Healthcare  due out later this summer.

Command-and-Control Doesn’t Work. Competition and Choice Do.

I’m a conservative who believes that America desperately needs real change in our health system.  But we will never get to that if we can’t get beyond this endless debate over government-run healthcare.

The fact is, command-and-control from Washington doesn’t work.  Competition, choice and individual control will produce the health system we want.

To truly bring down costs and expand coverage we need to build a bipartisan agreement focused on four things:

1) Improving individual health by incentivizing prevention, wellness and early health.

2) Giving doctors and hospitals incentives to deliver high-quality care through fair and proper payments.

3) Reforming public programs like Medicare and Medicaid to root out fraud, cut waste and reward quality.

4) Empowering individuals with the information and financial resources they need to be better, more-informed consumers.

The Center for Health Transformation has developed an approach that will improve individual health, lower costs and deliver the best possible care.  Tell your representative that any health reform bill must have these basic principles.

President Obama Has a Choice to Make

If we can make these changes, not only will we have better health, lower costs and higher quality care, the savings they generate could be used to insure every American.

President Obama has a choice to make.  Does he want to have a highly partisan, government bill?  Or does he want to take a genuinely bipartisan approach that accomplishes real reform?

It’s not yet clear which way the President will go.  What is clear is that our ability to choose care for ourselves and our loved ones depends a great deal on his choice.

If the President chooses to preserve and strengthen our control over our health, we can get a lot accomplished.  If he chooses to take it away, it’s going to be a long summer.

Your friend,


Newt’s Quick Links

•    When our book, 5 Principles for a Successful Life:  From Our Family to Yours was published, my daughter Jackie and I asked readers to submit their own stories about how the principles in our book helped them and their families lead happier and more successful lives.  The response was overwhelming.  Thank you to all the readers who took the time to share their remarkable stories.  My Father’s Day gift from Jackie was her favorite story illustrating each of the five principles.  You can view them at 5principlesoflife.com
.
•    Watch this space next week for a preview of the new paperback edition of Real Change, which is available now for purchase.  It has a new, updated forward dealing with today’s challenges and the solutions America needs during the Obama presidency.  Make sure to read all about it next week.

•    Callista and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate our longtime friend and collaborator Vince Haley on his recent marriage to Bethany Place.  Vince has been an invaluable source of inspiration and knowledge for us and a powerful voice in his own right for the solutions America needs.  Now Vince will begin a new life with Bethany.  Congratulations and best wishes for the future to Vince and Bethany.



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Comments
By Diane in WA @ Monday, July 06, 2009 10:46 PM
I'm with the joemeister who posted on July 1 at 5:36.

We don't need a federal goverment that does health care better or more efficiently; we need a federal government that recognizes it shouldn't be in the health care provision or financing business at all and we need citizens who take greater responsibility for their own care and financial choices and for the difficult decisions (or the reliance on the charity of others) that must be made when resources run thin. As it is, all the federal government can do is postpone those choices (deferring payment until a later date) or impose their choices over our own.

I also wonder how a federal government that manages to discern a "right to privacy" in the constitution which allows a woman and her doctor the private right to terminate a fetus can manage to forget that "right to privacy" when it comes to any other citizen's medical records. If there is such a right to privacy, how can the federal government have anything to do with a person's medical records at all, regardless of their supposed efficiency in automating them?

Does efficiency now preclude privacy?

Are we now a human crop with a federal manager, where culling is allowed, but self-determination and the dignity of separation are not?

No, thanks.
By Hot @ Monday, July 06, 2009 7:26 PM
Don't worry DonnaJo.
Obama and congress is seeing to it that we all live shorter lives either by health care, no jobs or higher taxes.

This country is headed for HELL and Obama and Nancy will be there to tax those that enter.


You elected these people SO YOU MUST BE HAPPY.
By DonnaJo @ Monday, July 06, 2009 6:40 PM
Obamacare: People Live Too Long, Anyway.....
By Al_Idaho @ Sunday, July 05, 2009 1:50 PM
I have always had the physician explain ALL of the options, pros and cons, when surgery may be indicated. I am much more comfortable with this than having a Barney Frank appointee dealing with this issue!
By Hot @ Saturday, July 04, 2009 12:12 AM
They don't want health care fixed, they all get kickbacks from health care.
Newt makes money talking about health care, so he doesn't want it fixed either.

If you all had taken math in school you would add up the numbers and see it's ALL ABOUT MONEY For THEM.

The only way to get ahead in this nation is do what our leaders do, LIE and CHEAT them whenever you can.
By seebee @ Thursday, July 02, 2009 11:07 AM
The government philosophy is always simple: give it more money and "it will improve." Don't "change" outdated and unsuccessful programs, just add more rules and regulations. The democrats are promising their followers "free" healthcare; they have already collapsed the "healthcare system" in the country by overloading it with "free" healthcare for illegal aliens. Please explain why the states where this has been done are now borrowing billions and cannot pay their own bills?
By J Miller @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009 8:00 PM
First America needs to tackle the reason health care cost have gone up.
Lawsuits and medical malpractice insurance! Fix this first!
By thejoemeister @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:36 PM
Mr Gingrich, your assertions are just as scary as Obama's

You say:"There is widespread agreement, for instance, that electronic medical records are the future. President Obama and I both share this view. "

So NATIONALIZING our records is a good thing? Umm, No! How about REAL CHANGE?

How about I speak to my Doctor PRIVATELY, no government forms, records,etc, and,

I pay PRIVATELY, with cash, check, etc, no government programs or insurers.

I already have ACCESS to health care in all 50 states, so long as I am willing to PAY FOR IT, and,

I have ACCESS to health insurance in all 50 states, so long as I am willing to PAY FOR IT.

So tell me, WHERE'S THE CRISIS?

To expensive? Then get government financing out of the process, then the prices will drop.

When government stopped buying mortgages through Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac did the home prices rise or drop? THEY DROPPED!

Get Uncles Sam out of food/farm subsidies, financing college tuition, medicare/medicaid, etc, and the prices will hit the floor.

It's called tough medicine. Will industries be hurt? You betcha! But it will lower costs to where they are supposed to be and not keep them artificially high in exchange for government power and control.

Just stay out of my life, no National Records and databases, etc.

I don't want any government reform, just leave the industry you're screwing up Uncle Sam, that's the best reform of all.

Otherwise, Newt, you're just playing the shift the costs and burden game called smoke and mirrors, but we're supposed to like you're solution because you're a nicer guy?

Ummm, NO! Just leave the people alone-completely.

JOE
By dan9el @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:42 PM
Did anyone did try to 'test ' the effectivity of a public heatlh care unit (any of them) around the country? Well, do that as an experimet, and you will find out that number of cases -( not wanted to day the majority of them) - ...number of cases, that need real good and serious attention, are for refferals to medical care OUT OF THE GOVERNMENTAL SPECTRUM FOR THE COST IS NOT "acceptable" under the 'guidelines' of public heath care . I other words, people have to go to 'paid-by-their-money' medical care / private pysiscians - MONEY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE FOR THAT IS THE REASON THEY GO TO PUBLIC HEALTH UNITS.

Picture this, and multiply the event thousand and tenth of thousand times all over the country, RATION-LIKE HEALTH CARE ,- like in others countries with this type of system of 'SOCIO- MEDICINE' and that boys and girl is what you get on this OBAMA GANG HEALTH PLAN. I offer no details now about extra taxes and the elimination of the existing health plan all over our country for that are topics for another time ,
Sufice to say this in a nut shell;

So how about a ‘new word’ for HEALTH CARE ? ....hummmm the 'new reform',..Alright here is a though;

“health care: = GOVERNMENTAL SOCIALIST AGENCY THAT WILL SAY ‘NO’ TO ANYONE WHO HAS A DISEASE THAT IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR TREATMENT AND SO YOU WILL DIE WITH YOUR TUMOR OR WHATEVER AND YOU HAVE TO BUY YOUR OWN HOLE IN THE GROUND SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO BE SIX FEET BELOW, OR PLANT YOURSELF IN YOUR HOUSE BACK-YARD, AFTER DEATH ( well, somebody has to put you there for you cannot move at that time, right? )

Perhaps THE OBAMA GANG CORRUPTED ANTI-AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION will think of another term, for this one I just offered is too long ,…however this one still ok, for the government is growing so big that seems to go even beyond the outer-rim of our solar system,…so this aparently “long name ” for HEALTH CARE should fit just right !

DO WE NEED MORE DECEPTION FROM THE OBAMA GANG CORRUPTED ADMINISTRATION VIA BEAUTIFUL CONVINCING WORDS FROM THE PROPAGANDIST PREACHER-IN-CHIEF ?
Open to suggestions.

And how your day is going so far?

Good day everyone,
Daniel Cabrera
Merrillville, indiana

PS - The tv tabloids (NBC, CNN, MSNBC) , and tabloid publications such as , THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE HUFFINGTON POST, LA TIMES , etc,... along with what is left of the quasi-hypoitized brainless "utra-obamanized " cool aid drinkers people, will not take this one lightly.
By Wally @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:25 PM
Progressive-Marxist Obama Has to "Kill-Off" America's Greatest Generation and the Generation After Since They "Know Better" and Are Generally Against Him and His Progressive-Marxist Policies.

Obama Needs Younger Folks That Are Products of NEA Union Schools, Do NOT Know HISTORY and...

Have Been Indoctrinated That
"GOVERNMENT IS GOOD,
PRIVATE SECTOR, LIBERTY & FREEDOM
Are Bad and CANNOT Be Trusted".

Obama Is
Growing Government Dependence
by Collapsing the Free Market Economy.

Wonderful.

When There Is No More Hope For a Better Future, Then What Are We to Do?

The American Tinderbox Continues to Smolder.

Continue to Sit on the Couch, Break Out the Figs and Watch Rome Burn
OR
Get Up and Do Something For Your Country and Childrens Future.

Live Free From Government Tyranny or Die Trying!
By michaelc @ Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:52 PM
Your column is one of the best I have read recently to have captured the contrast between two stark visions of healthcare reform - government takover that will interfere with patient-doctor relationships and by it's very nature will produce mediocre quality and inferior services or a 21st century, intelligent, wellness driven, health system that saves lives, money and will put the individual in charge. Good piece, Newt!
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