Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle at the Domenici Public Policy Conference. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
In spite of ideological disputes, there’s a significant level of agreement when it comes to the debate about health-care reform, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle asserted Wednesday.
There’s consensus that the United States spends too much on health care, the Democrat from South Dakota said at the Domenici Public Policy Conference in Las Cruces. And there is consensus that access to health care and quality are growing problems.
“These facts have produced a consensus that the current state of health care is unsustainable,” Daschle told hundreds of people present.
The problem? There’s a massive political and ideological dispute over what to do about those issues. But Daschle said those with varying views on how to reform the health care system can agree on a goal – to create a high-performance, high-value marketplace for health care with greater access, higher quality and lower costs.
“With a bipartisan effort, this too can be done,” he said, even as he acknowledged that the issue is complicated and emotional, and finding solutions will be difficult.
Daschle said other problems with America’s hybrid public-private system include a lack of transparency in the health-care industry, too much unnecessary care and administration that drives up costs, too much emphasis on illness instead of wellness, a lack of coordination, and a “substantial amount” of fraud and abuse.
He said the single-payer health care system some liberals want won’t happen in America because so many involved in the debate are concerned about the growth of government. Daschle co-wrote a 2008 book arguing the benefits of a single-payer system but conceding that such a system isn’t likely in the United States.
Daschle’s speech at the conference named for former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici comes as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – which some opponents call “Obamacare” – remains a hot topic of debate. Daschle said passage of the act was “really the beginning, not the end, of health-care reform,” saying it takes the United States perhaps 30 percent of the way toward what should be the goal.
He said he believes the act will help push a redesign of health care in America that will include more transparency, more efficiency with less administration, better coordination, and more prevention of health problems.
Daschle said it will take innovation, collaboration, intelligent engagement in policy, and leadership to fix the U.S. health-care system. He said it can and must be done.
Because the system is currently unsustainable, he said, “we simply can’t afford to fail to fix the problems.”