The rising cost of health care in the U.S. must be confronted with the same intensity as the war on terror, Sen. Ken Salazar said Tuesday.
Inspired by the 9/11 commission’s overhaul of homeland security, Salazar, D-Colo., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., are proposing a national commission on health care.
“The president has not done anything in respect to health care since he was elected, and Congress is tinkering at the edges,” Salazar said Tuesday during a visit to his alma mater, Colorado College. “I think the Senate is ready to tackle the issue.”
Colorado’s junior senator listed a series of examples from across the state to illustrate his point:
A man in his 80s from Edwards buys prescription drugs from Canada illegally in order to make ends meet.
The Dolores County sheriff has a hard time recruiting deputies because employees must pay 25 percent of their health-insurance premiums, which have grown 20 percent a year in recent years.
Almost 20 percent of Coloradans are uninsured.
McCain, whose office could not be reached Tuesday afternoon, has been calling for health-care reform for years.
“America enjoys the best health care on Earth,” McCain said in remarks delivered during his 2000 presidential campaign. “But our health-care system today often fails to reflect our values. For many families, it is too costly, too inaccessible and too bureaucratic to keep its promises.”
Salazar said a 10-member bipartisan commission appointed by the president and congressional leaders could succeed where efforts like those of former President Clinton failed.
Clinton created a task force in 1993 with hundreds of people involved and the process became unwieldy, Salazar said.
“A smaller task force with a group of experts would be better equipped to come up with comprehensive recommendations,” he said.
But not everyone is convinced a national commission is the solution.
“I don’t believe a commission can solve the problems because they are so complex,” said Jim Hertel, publisher of the Colorado Managed Care newsletter. “The Clinton group was unable to anticipate all the nuances and ended up upsetting the entire system.”
Hertel said Congress would be better off creating a Medicare-style system for all ages, in which working people pay into a fund for health-care vouchers that would be issued to those unable to afford treatment.
Salazar said the bill will be taken up by the Senate next year.
