• The Intermountain Health Care fight will spill out all over the place, in lobbying, grass-roots organizing, communications and the 2006 election. The two-year task force study will be intense. The bottom line is very simple: Does Utah want to allow highly managed medical care or doesn't it? Does Utah want higher-cost health care with more freedom for patients to choose any doctor they want and doctors able to charge any fee they want? Or do we want to allow an integrated system with more restrictions and less cost? We can't have it both ways. Adam Smith's invisible hand just doesn't work in today's health economics, and there's not much the Legislature can do about it.

• Despite strong support from the business community and local government leaders, mass transit made little headway in the past session. However, Huntsman is planning a transportation summit later this year and mass transit will be an important part of the agenda. Utah County will remain in the Dark Ages of mass transit, and communities begging for light-rail extensions will be waiting a few more decades unless lawmakers get serious about transit.

• Huntsman will stay busy with tax reform and summits on economic development and health care financing, in addition to the transportation summit. After a fire-hose start that included the budget proposal, inauguration, state of the state speech and beginning of the legislative session, "We can now take a deep breath and focus on governing," said Jason Chaffetz, Huntsman's chief of staff.

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Republican LaVarr Webb was policy deputy to Gov. Mike Leavitt and Deseret News managing editor. He now is a political consultant and lobbyist. E-mail: lwebb@exoro.com. Democrat Frank Pignanelli is Salt Lake attorney, lobbyist and political adviser. A former candidate for Salt Lake mayor, Pignanelli served 10 years in the Utah House of Representatives, six years as House minority leader. Pignanelli's spouse, D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, is executive director of the state Department of Administrative Services in the Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. administration. E-mail: frankp@xmission.com.

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