Gingrich presents health care reform ideas in Saint Louis
By Audrey Spalding
Show-Me Institute
Tuesday morning, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke to roughly 500 people about the future of health care science and the role that government and politicians should have in reforming the health care system.
Gingrich’s presentation was part of a four-hour-long event hosted by Delta Dental at the Ritz-Carlton in Saint Louis, beginning with an hour-long presentation about oral cancer by Dr. Jed Jacobson, the chief science officer and vice president for Delta Dental of Michigan.
Though Gingrich, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, did touch on oral care for a moment, he spent the majority of his hour on stage talking about widespread dissatisfaction with health care as a symptom of the U.S. government’s inefficiency and the current economic crisis.
For example, he said, most of the stimulus money approved by Congress has yet to be spent. “They just can’t get the bureaucracy to move,” Gingrich said.
“You can’t talk about health reform in isolation,” he said. “Health reform is a part of this whole problem.”
Gingrich, who has been a major proponent of electronic health records, also spoke at length about the risks of fraud in a paper-based system.
According to Gingrich, fraud is so prevalent that it accounts for nearly 10 percent of health care spending — or nearly $200 billion each year.
He said that moving from paper to electronic records could help government officials minimize spending on falsified claims.
“You can never have bureaucrats in a paper-based system operate at the speed of crooks,” Gingrich said. “Why would we raise taxes on any honest person before we quit paying the crooks?”
