When Logic Fails

Dr. Black always finds time to point out the failings of David Broder, as he does in Matlock’s Vision of Health Care, but he doesn’t spend enough time reviewing all of the disconnections in Broder’s column about Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

Consider these excerpts from Broder’s Washington Post column, Leavitt’s Healthy Vision

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — For most of the American public, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt is best defined by his role defending President Bush’s controversial veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Leavitt, along with the president, has argued that the bipartisan bill is too ambitious and too expensive, encroaching on the private insurance market. For his pains, he has been characterized as an ogre, standing in the way of better treatment for millions of youngsters in cash-strapped families.

That is not the man I got to know and admire in his years as governor of Utah and a leader in the National Governors Association. And it is not the man I heard address a conference of health-care insurers and providers here last week.
…

What I learned about Leavitt in his years as governor is that he is blessed with vision that sees future policy challenges and developments more clearly than most politicians. In this case, he is visualizing a radically different kind of medical marketplace, in which families armed with specific information about the treatment success and prices of hospitals and doctors can shop at will for the best quality and most affordable care.

That kind of marketplace is probably a decade away, Leavitt says, but for certain widely experienced conditions, the groundwork is being laid. Ten group practices — multi-specialty clinics and hospitals — around the country have begun to measure the outcomes of alternative treatment models for common diseases and are being paid by Medicare not by the volume of patients or office visits but for the outcomes. Medicare is linking its own evaluation results to those of the 10 groups, building a database from which national standards can be derived.

So Broder admits that Leavitt led the veto fight against health care for millions of children, but, hey, he was a great governor‽ What does one have to do with the other? Millions of children aren’t going to get health care.

I guess if those children manage to live until they can get Medicare, they will get great coverage and can thank Mike Leavitt.

The use of Medicare is another thing I have noticed about the wingers. Every time they try to make people think that the US system of health care is great, they end up talking about Medicare.

Americans get operations faster than Canadians, and the proof is the wait for joint replacements. Who pays for the overwhelming majority of joint replacements – Medicare.

The ability to choose your medical care based on proven performance may be available in the future and who will make this available – Medicare.

For the overwhelming majority of people in the United States who have private health insurance, the coverage they have is determined by their employer, and their health care choices are made by the insurance company. The only choice the individual has is to accept or reject the insurance coverage and to accept or reject the treatment.

For David Broder, it doesn’t matter that Leavitt is denying health care to children, because he’s going to provide new health care choices for David Broder.