Burnt Orange Report

Heck, maybe Newt is right

By Jim Dallas

Let's face it, we're not big friends of Newt Gingrich round these here parts.

But I've been intrigued by some of the former House speaker's recent projects regarding health care transformation.

Newt, who describes himself as a "Theodore Roosevelt Republican" when it comes to health, has helped to shove the Center for Healthcare Transformation into the limelight recently. And that's a good thing, I think, because the center's focus on the "big picture" of what is wrong with the health care "zone" (Newt claims health care is too disorganized to be called a "system", and I'm inclined to agree with that logic).

In any case, the AARP is pleased with Gingrich. Considering the AARP is usually a pretty strong supporter of everything Democratic, it's worth taking note of what the Executive Director of the AARP, William Novelli, wrote in the preface to Gingrich's book on health care transformation:

Gingrich believes that our healthcare system is beyond reform -- that it needs to be transformed into something totally different than it is today. "Reforming," Newt says, is the process of trying to make the current pattern work. "Transforming" is about developing new and very different patterns.

Volumes have been written about the problems with our healthcare system, and hundreds (if not thousands) of conferences are held every year with experts discussing how addressing a specific piece of the problem will improve the system. Yet, with all the talking and tinkering, costs continue to rise while quality care continues to decrease.

Newt Gingrich has never been one to tinker. He is a big idea person, and moreover, he has the ability to link big ideas into something even larger still. He believes it is time to focus the healthcare debate where it truly belongs -- on people's health. That is what Gingrich does in Saving Lives and Saving Money. The gap between the health and healthcare we should have and what we actually have is appallingly huge, and will only get larger if we don't transform the system. And, in the process of improving our health, the nation can also save billions of dollars if we make substantial changes in the way we practice health and health care.

Gingrich is proposing nothing less than dramatically changing one of the largest segments of our economy. His ideas for transforming the system are not academic theories. They are based on real-life examples of entrepreneurial changes people are making across the healthcare system throughout the country, and he offers specific examples to back up his claims and allow people to find out more.

Even if you're not inclined to agree with Gingrich on some of these grand-scheme-of-things notions, Democrats could be in serious trouble if President Bush (who has no health care agenda) seizes some of the CHT's rhetoric in an attempt to look bold and decisive (the way he "Greenwashed" his poor record on auto efficiency by promoting hydrogen-fueled cars in his last State of the Union address).

Alternatively, the idea of linking health care to national security (Newt talked a lot about bio-terrorism recently at a lecture on Medicare) could be a way for Democratic candidates to kill two birds with one stone.

Getting every American good health care is what we Democrats want. But we can't do it unless we look harder at cost containment. We can and should win on health care, but if we let the Republicans out-innovate us, we're going to be marching into a disaster.

ADDENDUM: In the here-and-now, I think it's worth pointing out that the sort of ideas looked at by the CHT -- improving health care integration, changing incentives by replacing Medicare deductibles with subsidies, special health care courts, etc. etc. -- provide a pretty strong indictment of the idea that malpractice suit caps such as those allowed by Prop. 12 aren't going to be enough to reduce the cost of malpractice insurance or health care generally. Newt pretty much admits this. Let's face the facts - Prop. 12 (by itself) probably won't do you or your family a tinkers' damn, while taking away your rights all the same.