Health reform vital — done right, medical groups say

There are plenty of things wrong with the American way of doing health care, but blowing the one, true chance in a generation to really do something about it by making it a rush job or letting it devolve into political fracas are wrongs that won't make it right.

That is the consensus this weekend across the spectrum of local stakeholders in and outside the health care system, from patient advocates to doctors to activists who argue that any change is an improvement of a flaw-riddled system that has defied resolution since Harry Truman was president.

"Let's do reform, but let's do it right," said Dr. Charles Stewart, a plastic surgeon in private practice in Provo and a former state senator who served on former Gov. Mike Leavitt's health-care reform committee in the 1990s. "What's going on now is like someone telling me during a delicate surgery to just hurry up and get it done."

Stewart was one of 40 doctors from 11 states and multiple county medical associations around the country who went to Washington on Wednesday to speak out against key proposals of emerging legislation. President Barack Obama had hoped legislation would be approved by the Aug. 8 summer break, but it now appears to be on hold at least until September.

"We've got some real difficult problems with health care in this country — expense, transparency and access to name a few," Stewart said in a telephone interview with the Deseret News on Thursday. "The problems need urgent attention, but adding an artificial sense of urgency to resolve every problem in a matter of weeks is just once again reinventing the wheel and driving headlong into reform but making no real, lasting headway."

That's because for all the rhetoric, reform still has no traction, said Dr. Joseph Jarvis, a primary care physician in Salt Lake and a reform activist. Jarvis has been summing up the ills of the health-care system for more than 20 years and did so again this past week. "The sound and fury increases in inverse proportion to the cogency of the actual proposal."

In other words, he explained, "if what is being proposed makes no sense, one must speak all the louder and longer to try to get the public to swallow it. Obama is in full feeding mode … he continues to push for rapid action in Congress because it cannot stand scrutiny," Jarvis said.

Obama said Thursday at a town hall meeting in Cleveland that he'll gladly exchange the sense of urgency he's been trying to instill in the debate for signs that Congress isn't attempting to stall reform to death or let it sink into party politics. Memos surfaced last week from some Republican anti-reformers who intend to make health-care reform Obama's Waterloo.