The Public Option

The President’s Health Care message is missing the vital issue.

Whether you are for or against a public option, one thing is crystal clear: No matter what bill is in the Congress or Senate, none of them address the costs of medicine. Sen. Baucus’ bill really doesn’t do anything except create a framework for more costly bureaucracy. Rep. Pelosi’s bill creates a monstrously complicated web of bureaucracies, a “best practices” panel filled with political appointees and no physicians, and the public option.

None of these bills address the issues of Tort reform, medication and device costs, or the costs of educating our doctors. Even if you want a public option, the costs associated with health care need to reformed. If you have a public option health care bill, the costs will not go down unless you reform those costs. It isn’t rocket science, it’s common sense.

Before we explore the public option as a nation, we need to make the tough choices to reduce the costs associated with health care. We need Tort reform, which, according to Pres. Obama, accounts for 25% of health care expenses. We need to reform the way medications and devices get approved, and extend the patent life of medications and devices. We need to control the mark up of medications the pharmacies can charge. We need to lower the costs of educating our doctors.

If we don’t reform these basic costs of health care, then the public option will fail. We will be in the position the British are: Dependent on foreign physicians to fill our physician shortage. Is that what we want for our children?