President Clinton's health-care reform package is little more than inefficient government regulation clothed in a guise of simplicity and security, a national consumer advocate said Wednesday.
Paul Merski, an economist with "Citizens for a Sound Economy," based in Washington, D.C., told Utahns gathered at a neighborhood health-care panel discussion that the president's plan undermines the very ideas it claims to embrace."President Clinton has laid out six principles of health-care reform: security, choice, simplicity, quality, savings and responsibility," said Merski. "But you can examine each one of these ideas on the proposed plan - and they all fail."
Regulation dictated by an expanded health-care bureaucracy with little or no judicial review foils Clinton's claim of simplicity, Merski said.
"Food, like health care, is a necessity - but the government doesn't control our grocery stores. Consumers should always be in control of their health-care decisions. Clinton wants to take away individual control and place it in the hands of a national health board," Merski said.
The economist added that health-care provider spending caps, included in the president's package, will jeopardize the quality of medical care currently available to Americans. Providers, he said, will be forced to ration medical services in order to minimize economic loss.
Panel member Rod Betit, executive director of the state Department of Health, told the small audience that Gov. Mike Leavitt's tentative health-care reform options would likely supersede any federally regulated program.
"Utah's in relatively good shape with only 10 percent of the population without some kind of health insurance," said Betit. "If Gov. Leavitt can demonstrate to the president that Utah has a plan that provides universal health care - at a lower cost than the proposed national plan - I know the federal government would be flexible."
After the discussion, Merski challenged Betit's argument.
"A state with a relatively healthy (insurance) situation should be concerned about being forced to subsidize the economically unhealthy states. States such as Utah could be forced to pick up the tab for the rest of the country," Merski said.