Actions, or lack thereof, speak louder than State of the Union addresses.
From California HealthLine comes the news that the Administration has failed to comply with its legal obligation to respond to the Citizen’s Health Care Working Group.
The Group was created by the 2003 Medicare Part D legislation and tasked with creating a national public debate on universal coverage to high quality care. It also produced an action plan that the Congress and President are supposed to consider in their legislative efforts. The President is required by law to respond to the report within 45 days; the deadline passed over four months ago.
So far, Pres. Bush’s response has been to delegate his responsibility to HHS Sec. Mike Leavitt.
The Working Group’s recommendations are pretty straight-forward – they include (among other recommendations):
– Establish public policy that all Americans have affordable health care.
– Guarantee financial protection against very high health care costs.
– Defining the core benefits and services that will be assured to all Americans.
I’m going to speculate that the reason the Bush Administration has not been able to respond as of yet is related to politics – I know, that’s a “duh” comment. Hear me out.
Note that two of these recommendations are different ways of saying “universal access” regardless of ability to pay. That’s expensive, and for an Administration that has little budgetary room to do much of anything, adding another really expensive program to the camel’s burden will flatten the poor beast.
By not responding, the Administration is protecting itself from deficit hawks, who will scream if another un-affordable health care plan is promoted (can you spell “Part D”?). And avoiding a battle over health care, an issue where the opposition has much more traction.
The ball has been kicked down the road, perhaps into 2009, where someone else will have to deal with even higher budget deficits, more uninsured Americans, and a health care system even more broken.
Where’s the “Decider” when you need him? (requires QuickTime 7)
IMO think the full and proper response to the Citizens’ Health Carwe Working Group report is
“Noted. Thank you for your work.”
I say this as a participant in the Working Group. IMO it was a time- and money-wasting sop included in legislation purely for political reasons. IMO, the leadership of the group showed no imagination in structuring the work and, also IMO, the work of the Group was unrevealing, and its recommendations (where they were actually more than meaningless babble) are neither insightful nor practical.
The best place to file this report is on the trash heap of preceding useless government “studies”. Be done with it.
(March 14) The White House in a written response has rejected key recommendations from the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, a congressionally mandated, nonpartisan group that held town hall-type discussions across the country, as well as an Internet survey, to gauge the healthcare wants and needs from a broad slice of Americans.
Full story at modernhealthcare.com (subscription required)
I can only assume the President was responding to the withering pressure from this blog :)