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September 3, 2009
Conservatives See Need for Serious Health Debate
By JIM RUTENBERG and GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON — The roiling debate over health care this summer has included a host of accusations from opponents of the plan that have been so specious that many in the mainstream news media have flatly labeled them false.
Far from embracing the attacks, many leading conservative health care policy experts said in recent interviews that the dynamic was precluding a more robust real-world debate while making it nearly impossible for them to inject their studied, free-market solutions into the discussions. And they said the focus on what they consider misleading or secondary issues was getting in the way of real questions about the plan they believed worthy of consideration.
“There are serious questions that are associated with policy aspects of the health care reform bills that we’re seeing,” said Gail Wilensky, a veteran health care expert who oversaw the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs for the first President George Bush and advised Senator John McCain in his presidential campaign last year.
“And there’s frustration because so much of the discussion is around issues like the death panels and Zeke Emanuel that I think are red herrings at best,” she said, referring to a health care adviser to President Obama whose views on some issues have been misrepresented by opponents.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group, is among those making policy-laden arguments against Mr. Obama’s plan that do not lend themselves to easily digestible catch phrases like “death panels” or false but sensational assertions that the elderly will be told to choose euthanasia as a cost-saving measure. But his critique is based on related fears that the plans being discussed would inevitably lead to increased government involvement in personal medical decisions and eventually affect vital services.
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