From Speaker David Clark: Utah must continue to get the job done on health care
The following Editorial appeared in the Spectrum Daily News on Sunday, August 23, 2009.
We are reprinting it here and welcome your feedback.
- The Utah House Democrats
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Utah must continue to get the job done on health care
I’m often asked why the state continues to pursue health reform when the federal government seems poised to act on the issue. First, I must express some trepidation about the federal proposals that have been presented to date. Congress, in my view, does two things very well: nothing and over-react.
After campaigning on promises of a quick fix, Congress and the president are pushing for reforms that attempt to make the public feel good and poll numbers rise.
However, it isn’t true reform, and it isn’t worthy of those in desperate need of reform.
Instead, I’m much more optimistic about the path to health reform that Utah is pursuing. The citizens of this state and the Legislature have demanded fundamental change in our health care system – how care is delivered, how it is paid for and how we as a state provide access to health care for all of our citizens.
In pursuing this fundamental change, Utah has invested countless hours in building a net of consensus that will sustain a new health system for the long haul.
In our nearly three years of work on reform inside Utah, we have built a foundation for a new health system based on market solutions. We have asked stakeholders to cooperate, participate, innovate and implement change. It has not been easy keeping the stakeholders engaged, but we are now starting to see results from our investment in consensus building.
Just this week, Utah announced the opening of a new health exchange that will offer employees the opportunity to purchase insurance based on individual needs rather than employer preference. The exchange will increase the availability of lower-cost plans and allow consumers to more efficiently compare insurance plans and medical providers when comparison shopping.
We’ve also put in place laws that will increase the ability to calculate the costs of treatment across entire episodes of illness and the ability to share medical data electronically among patients, doctors and labs.
When completed, we expect this foundation to slow the long-term growth of health care spending. This cost containment will be key to ensuring that those already covered are able to retain their insurance and those without insurance are able to get the coverage they need.
Much of what we have already done in Utah will survive any congressional rearrangement of the health care landscape. However, I expect that we could end up with some new and very real obstacles to further reform at the state level if the federal government intervenes. This would be an unfortunate result that would further erode our system of federalism, which was designed to keep most government decision-making at the level closest to the people. While we urgently need Congress to make certain reforms that only it can make, we do not need it to overreact and further limit the ability of states to craft solutions that reflect their own values and priorities.
As a state legislator, I see that states are and should be the point of primary interaction between citizens and their government. In that position we don’t enjoy the luxury of failing to make good on our promises. We must keep our policy promises and get the job done.
David Clark is the speaker of the Utah State House of Representatives.
