Patient Power

Tom Daschle wants a “Federal Reserve for Health Care”

The AP reports that “former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.”  Check out Michael Cannon’s comments on Daschle’s health care reform proposals:

Daschle and others propose that Congress create a “federal health board” to manage the health care sector.  The Federal Health Board would do things like require you to purchase health insurance, dictate what kind of health insurance you will purchase, set the prices for health insurance and medical goods and services, etc.. In other words, the Federal Health Board would have the power to bankrupt corporations, to force doctors to change the way they do business, to deny medical care to patients, and to shift massive amounts of resources from one part of the country to another.  The problem is, some corporations, doctors, patients, and regional interests would try to block parts of The Plan, either on their own or through their representatives in Congress.

Since it would be so hard for the Federal Health Board to do its job with all that meddling by the governed, Daschle et alia want to insulate the Board from the political process.  Specifically, they want Congress to model a new Federal Health Board on the existing Federal Reserve Board.  That would enable the “health Fed” to focus on the public good, much like the Federal Reserve Board manages the money supply and guides interest rates without any of the unseemly pandering to special interests that goes on in Congress and other government bodies.  Because that’s how the Fed operates, right?

Wrong.  Read the rest of Cannon’s post here.

• Federal Health Board could extend government-controlled insurance
• Pay for Performance Perils