Utah approach to health reform is way too slow

This happens about once a year. They won't pay for a child's regular visit to the doctor because they say the doctor's office failed to fill out a form properly. The doctor's office complies, and then the insurance company once again balks for some technical reason. And each time, we deal with a different representative on the phone.

My wife turned to me last week and said, "Can you imagine how difficult this would be if the government ran health care."

Yes, indeed. As inefficient as our private insurer is at times, it does operate under a profit incentive. A government agency with all the incentive of the DMV would have to be worse.

And yet there has to be something better than both systems. My biggest worry is we won't find out.

The Utah Legislature has begun implementing what it calls a 1-3-6-10 plan to health-care reform. Those aren't lucky bingo numbers. They aren't a new Dr. Pepper ad campaign for when you should want more. Those are years. It will take one year to establish a foundation for reform by convening a task force, three years to come up with a plan that addresses six areas of reform and, finally, about 10 years to put everything in place.

By that time, two more presidential elections will have passed, as will five legislative elections. The health-care-reform train will have left the station.

On one level, it makes sense to work deliberately and carefully to solve a complicated problem. But on a more realistic level, two men are running for the White House right now with grand plans for health-care reform that could make whatever the state does irrelevant. Each candidate has outlined these on his Web site. Significantly, John McCain's is the only one that mentions giving states the flexibility to experiment. But, of course, 535 members of Congress will want to put their own fingerprints on whatever becomes law.

When that happens, 1-3-6-10 may better describe the number of years you would have to wait for different types of medical procedures.

Utah has no shortage of experts ready to provide a road map for market-driven change. The Salt Lake Chamber has a bill of rights for health-care reform. This plan includes making sure workers, not their employers, are the ones making decisions, and that the system is completely transparent. Patients should know how much a procedure will cost, and they should know the success rates of doctors, hospitals and other facilities that perform those procedures.

The Utah Foundation published a report that examines the current system and how to improve it. Utah lawmakers also recently heard from officials in Missouri, where a new law allows businesses to give workers a health-insurance stipend, allowing them to buy plans that better suit their needs.

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