"The era of blame and standing in a circle pointing at each has to come to an end, if real pathways to solutions have any hope of being found," Baker said. "That gives rise to fear and questions, such as: Will a dysfunctional system lead to so-called socialized medicine?"

With 40 percent of all health care provided in this country by and through government programs, notions of a competitive, private market of health care and fears of what's coming often don't mesh with the reality, Baker said.

Any health-care providers, including doctors, hospitals and insurers, must address a lot of hard questions, he said.

"In a truly competitive market, would a company with overhead costs of 21 percent reported by some local hospitals be able to succeed?" Baker said. "I've been frustrated over the years that being efficient in the health-care marketplace doesn't matter."

Dr. Joe Jarvis said that one of the evils that the health-care industry and lawmakers trying to instigate changes to it should have seen coming but still don't understand is that the health-care industry is not a marketplace, and health care is not a commodity. Jarvis used the conference Saturday to publicly announce that he is running for the District 24 seat in the Legislature.

Jarvis, a Republican, said he is fully aware that he is going against virtually every other party candidate and most Democrats in any state or federal office by opposing so-called market-driven strategies for fixing the health-care system.

Utah's current reform effort began with HB133, an omnibus bill that was passed unanimously by both houses and dictates that any solutions to health-care access and delivery problems be "market-driven."

"The hallmark of the so-called health-care market is incredibly wasteful spending that by now constitutes the greatest threat to state and federal budgets," Jarvis said.

Allegiance to a market-driven system hampers discussion of real, long-lasting solutions needed for a system that literally cannot sustain itself and will bleed the entire economy dry to keep it going, he said.

"This is a huge threat to the daily life of every person in this country, and going through another reformation with the condition that market competition must prevail essentially dooms a well-meaning effort," he said.

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com