Will Obama Learn from Cameron on Health Care?
The President arrived in London last night, on the longest leg of his trip to Europe. His British visit will continue tomorrow with a speech to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. (No word yet on whether the President will take questions from MPs.)
It is unclear whether health care will be on the agenda for the Anglo-American summit – but perhaps it should be. As we’ve previously reported, the British Government is attempting a “radical reorganization” intended to promote efficiency by eliminating bureaucracy – bureaucracies that are often used to deny care to patients. As the New York Times noted: “Currently, how and where patients are treated, and by whom, is largely determined by decisions made by 150 entities known as primary care trusts — all of which would be abolished under the plan, with some of those choices going to patients.” In other words, the Cameron government is attempting to put patients and doctors, not bureaucrats, at the center of the health care conversation.
Compare that to the Obama Administration, which signed a law creating 159 new boards, bureaucracies, and programs to “improve” health care. Its approach to accountable care organizations (ACOs) has turned into an historic flop, with multiple letters coming from the provider community about the mass of regulations and mandates placed on ACOs in the Administration proposal. In fact, several Republican senators wrote to the Administration today asking for a U-turn on ACOs and a withdrawal of the proposed rule.
And yet the Administration not only wants to continue with its top-down, government-centric approach to health care, it wants to increase government control over health care. The only Democrat idea to “reform” Medicare is the President’s proposal to give even more power to an unelected board of 15 bureaucrats to make rulings on how Medicare should operate. Such a board could come to resemble Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) – and while CMS Administrator Berwick has expressed his strong support for NICE’s policy of “ration[ing] with our eyes open,” British patients have been far from keen about NICE’s arbitrary rationing.
So, whilst the President is in London this week, he would do well to talk with Prime Minister Cameron about true health care reform – and for that matter, visit with some British patients who have had life-saving treatments denied to them by government bureaucrats. America’s health care system could be the better for it.