Legislators determined to reform health care

Like it or not, a top-to-bottom overhaul of Utah's health-care system is under way that will affect every physician, insurance agent and consumer — even the 17 percent of Utahns who say they do their best to avoid completely the medical industrial complex.

State lawmakers who wrote the unanimously supported bill that was the first step in reforming the health-care system say they remain determined not to let the effort fall by the wayside like previous proposed fixes.

Rep. David Clark, R-Santa Clara and co-chair of the special legislative task force empaneled under HB133, a bill he sponsored calling for sweeping changes to the system, reminds people every chance he gets that it's a short hike from crisis to catastrophe.

"This is the last window of opportunity we have to really get a handle on this," Clark said Wednesday to members of the Legislature's Health and Human Services Interim Committee. Clark, who is also House majority leader, repeated the statement in so many words dozens of times: Despite wider economic pressures getting much more attention than fixing health care, no other issue affects more people personally.

In looking around the other states and their health care predicament, he said, "many states would advance by 100 years to get to the position Utah is in. But just because we are the cream of the crop doesn't mean we can sit back and do nothing," noting that without a serious intervention, 100 percent of the Utah wage would be consumed by one aspect of the economy in less than 10 years.

"As important as health care is, I kind of enjoy eating and having a nice place to rest my head at night," Clark said.

Clark and task force co-chairman Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, told lawmakers that the root problem is inadequate insurance coverage but cautioned that neither that problem nor any single aspect of the complicated system they're responsible for retooling is a silver bullet.

The basic effort is to try to modernizing the insurance system, Clark said. But the current health care system has been broken by government regulation, lack of transparency for cost, accountability and transparency of outcome of medical services and procedures.

Killpack said no matter the height or angle from which the problem is viewed, there isn't a single approach that will work, noting that hospitals and other care providers have generally been impervious to reduce costs, create greater choices for coverage or true consumer involvement.

"This is a remote-control society," Killpack said. "We don't like what's on, so we punch a button and expect an immediate change."

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com