Wisconsin Redistricting Lawsuit Could Reverberate Nationally

Wisconsin Redistricting Lawsuit Could Reverberate Nationally

Comment by Don McCanne

We have some serious problems in health care that need our immediate attention such as administrative  excesses, wasteful spending, impaired access, maldistribution of health care
resources, and financial barriers to care. But the health policy community is entrenched in efforts to  expand the administrative oversight of our system as somehow being the solution to problems they seem not to have defined. They are adding to the problem of administrative excesses while ignoring what really needs to be done.

David Blumenthal, having been our National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, seems to define the problem as a lack of health data management through a health information exchange. He would create a "robust new business sector" - a "consumer-mediated health information exchange" - providing data services to patients. Just what we need - more administrative excesses!

Right now our government and the health care industry are deeply involved in drafting rules
for the Merit-based Incentive Performance System (MIPS) and the alternative payment model (APM) option as more studies are showing that such efforts are impairing professional satisfaction and increasing physician burnout -  more administrative excesses with detrimental outcomes!

We need to start thinking about the patients and a health care system that would best serve their needs. A single payer national health program is specifically designed to address the real problems noted in the first paragraph above. Patients are not looking to interact with personal data managers; they want health care, and they want it now.