Dueling Talking Points on Health Care Reform

Today is the day of the White House Bipartisan Health Care Summit.  The debate is pitched to the political center. 
No talk of "universal coverage", health care as a human right, expansion of Medicaid, or jettisoned ideas like dropping the Medicare eligibility age to 55.  


Big vision is out.  Achievable is in as we are still dominated by anti-government sentiment in our political climate, as we have been since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.  Skepticism is easier than faith, and individualism remains more comforting than, shall we say, socialism, for most Americans.


The Democratic plan's talking points center on a populist anti-insurance company appeal:

* Makes insurance more affordable

* Makes the health insurance market competitive

* Makes insurance companies accountable

* Reduces the deficit

* Will end insurance company abuses


The Republican Talking Points center on individual choice:

• Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
• Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
• Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
• Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

The GOP alternative (which is really  a set of talking points along the lines brilliantly developed by Republican strategist Frank Luntz HERE) includes many of their favorites reaching back to the 1994 Contract with America. 


Prominent among the proposals is The Medical Malpractice Myth, an urban legend decisively rebutted by UPenn Law Professor and insurance expert Tom Baker in his book of that name, published by University of Chicago Press.  Read an excerpt HERE


The junk lawsuits argument is also a distraction from two key drivers of medical  costs fee for service billing, and drug and medical device company over-selling such as the massive and unnecessary prescription of fosamax to millions of middle-aged women.  Merck executed a brilliant marketing strategy, practically created the diagnosis of osteopenia, the technology to test for bone density, and drove the passage of a bill that mandates Medicare coverage, a story dramatically laid out a few weeks ago on NPR HERE.