Daschle's Solution to Health Care

One Proposed Answer to the American Health Care Crisis

Mar 29, 2008 Missy Kavanaugh

Sen. Tom Daschle's solution to the current health care crisis.

Most of the world's successful health care systems do not employ third party payment-they don't use insurance companies. The government pays for it.

One Solution

Sen. Tom Daschle has advocated a similar system in his recently published book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.

While Daschle admits that getting Americans to embrace a government-led system has its challenges given their sensitivities to socialized medicine, he does propose a plan.

Daschle believes that the answer lies in building on the system we currently have in place. The difference being that every American would be covered, regardless of employment status or pre-existing condition. And, the system would be regulated by a Federal Health Board (FHB). Employers would have a choice between keeping the health care plan they currently have with a private company, or choosing a public plan provided and regulated by the federal government. The federal health care plan would be the same or similar to what's currently offered to federal employees, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or FEHP.

The Federal Health Board

The proposed Federal Health Board would be comprised of the most respected health care professionals, researchers and educators in the country, and would provide the framework in which the new health care system would operate.

The hope is that the federal system would serve as a model for private insurance companies and would be the catalyst for driving soaring health care costs down.

In choosing what it will cover and how much it will pay," argues Daschle in his book, "it could steer providers to the services that are the most clinically valuable and cost effective, and dissuade them from wasting time and money on those that are neither."

He compares the right to adequate health care to the right to a proper education.

"Just as parents can choose to obtain private education for their children, employers and individuals would have the option of going outside the expanded FEHP for their health care coverage."

How to Pay for the Costs

And he advocates the federal government help pay the costs by providing a sliding scale to those in need. He suggests that no one pay more than a percentage of their income to help defray the costs of the universal system. He mentions a tax credit.

Quality Health Care

It would also raise quality, Daschle argues. He points to the British system as a role model for quality and cost control.

"In Great Britain, the National Institute on Clinical Excellence (NICE) develops guidelines for the National Health Service (NHS). It spends less than 1 percent a year of total health spending."

The bottom line, according to Daschle, is the need for a revised system to stop the cycle of escalating costs. He points to the lack of universal health care as a vicious cycle in which health problems lead to employment problems, which in turn lead to a loss of coverage and more health problems. The result is more costs for all.

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One solution to the American health care crisis