He repeated this statement during his inaugural address in January 2005. In the past three years we have made little progress. A Huntsman-appointed task force looked at the problem, received a lot of input from a number of players in the system, then died a quiet death last fall.
A few "incremental" bills were introduced into this year's Legislature, but only the Children's Health Insurance Program funding passed. We have made no real progress.
Our current market-based health care system is failing. Everyone knows it, most important the voting constituents of the Legislature and the governor. The numbers of uninsured continue to increase: Uninsured children in Utah age 0-18 have increased 63 percent in the past five years.
Everyone either is, or knows someone who is, uninsured or underinsured when an illness or injury has struck. Premiums, deductibles and co-pays continue to increase and are unaffordable to many employed, hard-working people. Only the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are doing well.
A total revamp of the system is needed to provide access to quality health care that is cost-effective and affordable. Baby steps of incremental change will not solve the problem.
Many players in the system are proposing solutions. The national Healthy Americans Act proposed by our Sen. Bob Bennett and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., is promising but could literally take years to make its way through the Congress and whatever administration is then in place.
Organizations in Utah, such as the Utah Medical Association, have developed statements of principles for provision of health care for all Utahns. Others are developing specific plans for implementation, among them the United Way Financial Stability Council, the Utah Hospital Association and the Utah Health Policy Project.
These will reflect the needs and desires of the people, employers, employees, and those of a particular organization. But it is doubtful that one group's proposal will be sufficient to answer the needs of all.
I would propose a public-private system: all preventive and maintenance care for adults and children would be paid for from public funds, and all risk of injury or illness would be covered by private insurance, which is what insurance was designed for in the first place. The whole system would be run by a publicly funded, apolitical government agency.
With so many different ideas proposed, it will take lengthy discussions and compromise to reach a total system solution. I believe only Huntsman has the power to bring all these organizations and people's representatives, including legislators, together in an ad hoc task force - time-limited and refereed through the power of his office - to prepare a carefully crafted proposal for health care for all Utahns, supported by all these players.
This proposal would then be advanced to our Legislature for action. Utah cannot wait for Congress and the administration to act, we cannot wait for incremental proposals to die or be compromised in the state Legislature and, finally, we cannot wait while our voters continue to tread water in a swamp ever more filled with alligators.
Every parent with whom I speak about his or her children, every adult, essentially every organization, realizes the enormity of the problem and is asking for a solution. It's time for our elected representatives to act for the people - now.
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* TOM METCALF is a Salt Lake pediatrician in part-time practice and part-time child advocacy.
