Steve Burd, CEO of Safeway, has joined Andy Grove and a variety of other business leaders who believe they can fix health care. In an opinion piece for the Washington Times, he insinuates that everyone else working on the issue has been dithering:
Action must be taken … The time has come for all of us to stop talking about this problem and start solving it.
Ironically, considering his somewhat patronizing tone, the “core principles” that animate Burd’s Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform are actually pretty shopworn:
Market forces can fix this problem … Every American should be required to carry health insurance … we must provide assistance for low-income individuals to obtain coverage …health-care plans must be designed to promote healthy behavior … individuals must be able to purchase health care in the same tax-advantaged way as businesses do now.
Surely he knows that these ideas have already been attempted. The requirement that everyone buy health insurance, for example, is a component of Romneycare and is causing all manner of practical difficulties. Likewise, a change in the tax laws relating to health coverage is a Bush initiative that the Democrats are doing their best to scuttle.
Mr. Burd apparently doesn’t realize that reforming health care isn’t like a “come to Jesus” meeting with a bunch of lazy VPs. Health care reform is a very complex issue involving lots of powerful interests whose agendas are in violent conflict. It’s not a matter of simply knocking a few heads together.
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