Thursday, January 11, 2007

Opinion

Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address Universal Health Insurance

      Newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces addressing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R) recent proposal to provide universal health care coverage in the state and other issues related to providing universal health care nationwide. Summaries appear below.

Editorials

• Albany Times Union: Schwarzenegger's proposal "should serve as a wake-up call to the new Democratic leaders in Congress that ... health coverage is a national crisis that requires a national solution," a Times Union editorial states. "Health care shouldn't depend on what state a person lives in," the editorial states, adding, "And the Democrats who now lead the Congress should say as much" (Albany Times Union, 1/10).
  
  
• Arizona Daily Star: Universal "health care coverage appears to be gaining momentum on the national agenda" as "major corporations like Wal-Mart, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler" struggle with "skyrocketing" premiums, an Arizona Daily Star editorial states. The editorial calls for a universal health care system because it "is clear that both corporations and consumers are finding health care costs increasingly difficult to tolerate" (Arizona Daily Star, 1/9).
  
  
• Christian Science Monitor: "California may show the nation that it is possible to provide health insurance to all citizens," a Christian Science Monitor editorial states. "But that doesn't address the equally urgent need to control health care costs," according to the editorial. The editorial concludes, "Until runaway costs can be contained, no one can claim to have fixed the broken health care system" (Christian Science Monitor, 1/10).
  
  
• Los Angeles Times: "The governor certainly knows that the final version of the plan will deviate from the proposal he unveiled on Monday," according to a Los Angeles Times editorial. The editorial states that the governor's "determination to fix the state's broken health care system is a welcome sign of his commitment" and that he "should also make candor a part of the agenda" (Los Angeles Times, 1/9).
  
  
• Los Angeles Daily News: It "seems unlikely that all competing interests" in the health care system "can come together around a single plan that ... actually fixes what's broken," a Daily News editorial states. The editorial continues that by "focusing the debate on finding answers to the problem," the governor has "set the stage" for all parties to agree on a pragmatic and achievable plan" (Los Angeles Daily News, 1/9).
  
  
• Orange County Register: Schwarzenegger's proposal "piles on more of what created the health care mess in the first place: government mandates, government-imposed costs and government regulations," a Register editorial states, adding that "the governor's good intentions take us farther down the road of concession, not merely compromise" (Orange County Register, 1/9).
  
  
• Sacramento Bee: Schwarzenegger "deserves special credit" for his health care proposal because, "compared with the rest of his party, he has not seized on illegal immigration and made it an excuse for doing nothing on health care," a Sacramento Bee editorial states (Sacramento Bee, 1/10).
  
  
• San Diego Union-Tribune: The governor's proposal "evades the central problem -- the rising costs and poor quality of health care," according to a Union-Tribune editorial. "The governor has crafted a government-heavy plan, perhaps to win support from the Democrats," the editorial states, concluding, "He can salvage universal coverage by putting consumers in charge" (San Diego Union-Tribune, 1/9).
  
  
• San Francisco Chronicle: Schwarzenegger's proposal involves "a complicated system of tradeoffs, higher fees and tougher rules," a Chronicle editorial states. "There are plenty of barriers to achieving universal health care, and money is the object in each," the editorial states, adding, "Any attempt to mandate coverage must be accompanied by meaningful steps to contain costs" (San Francisco Chronicle, 1/9).
  
  
• San Jose Mercury News: Schwarzenegger "unveiled a bold, comprehensive health care reform plan that shows he's ready to tackle the issue by emphasizing a welcome concept: shared responsibility," according to a Mercury News editorial. Schwarzenegger "exceeded expectations by focusing on the basic principle that every Californian must be insured" (San Jose Mercury News, 1/9).

Opinion Pieces

• California Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D), Los Angeles Times: Proposals by Schwarzenegger and other California lawmakers "are short-term solutions that have the potential to expand coverage but at the end of the day can't be relied on to achieve ... a government guarantee of access to affordable health care coverage in the state," Kuehl, chair of the state Senate Health Committee, writes in a Times opinion piece (Kuehl, Los Angeles Times, 1/9).
  
  
• Ana Malinow, Houston Chronicle: Child advocates and elected officials who are meeting this week in more than 35 cities nationwide to discuss children's health insurance expansions "should stop looking for piecemeal solutions" like SCHIP programs and Medicaid "that are guaranteed to fail" and "instead support a system where everyone pays into it equitably and every one takes out according to medical need," Ana Malinow, a pediatrician at Ben Taub General Hospital in Texas, writes in a Houston Chronicle opinion piece (Malinow, Houston Chronicle, 1/9).
  
  
• Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee: "The overarching uncertainty" about Schwarzenegger's proposal "is whether such an ambitious scheme could survive the legislative grinder," columnist Walters writes in a Sacramento Bee opinion piece. He writes, "There are four possibilities: effectively reforming health care; enacting a minor, face-saving expansion of care; another gridlock failure; or creating another unworkable monstrosity" (Walters, Sacramento Bee, 1/9).
  
  
• Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle: "Schwarzenegger deserves praise for attempting to tackle the thorny and thankless task" of reforming the health care system in California, but he "was wrong" in calling for health insurance coverage for undocumented immigrants, columnist Saunders writes in a Chronicle opinion piece. According to Saunders, "the unintended consequences" of such a plan "could cost billions, and the state already is running in the red" (Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/9).
  
  
• Diane Ernst, San Francisco Examiner: "Californians should not be fooled by schemes to cure health care woes with bigger government," Ernst, a public policy fellow in health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute, writes in an Examiner opinion piece. Ernst calls for reducing government regulations on insurers and hospitals and encouraging adoption of health savings accounts and use of retail clinics. She writes that Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature "should lift burdensome government regulations and allow market incentives to work in the Golden State" (Ernst, San Francisco Examiner, 1/9).
  
  
• Joanna Garritano, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Market-driven medicine tears at our moral fabric as people are seen as commodities -- mere bodies to insure rather than complex individuals with diverse human needs," Garritano, an emergency department physician at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, writes in a Post-Intelligencer opinion piece. Garritano concludes, "Single-payer publicly funded health insurance with privately delivered health care may just be the solution we are looking for" (Garritano, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/10).