Former Secretary of Treasury ‘Dismayed’, ‘Distressed’ Over Media and President’s Health Care Conversation

Issues of health care reform continue to dominate the media landscape and government debates, and yet, according to Paul O’Neill, there has not been enough truthful, sensible discussion of the matter. O’Neill – the 72nd Secretary of the Treasury Department under George W. Bush, former chairman and CEO of aluminum giant Alcoa, and committee member of many groups like the American Red Cross, Committee for Economic Development and the National Leadership Commission on Health Care – spoke at a Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (MRCBG) seminar on September 17 where he expressed his disappointment with the conversation on health care reform.

Citing articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other major national newspapers, O’Neill conveyed his dismay over the way journalists and news organizations are failing to provide facts and are twisting the focus of the health care debate.

“It dismays me that our conversation about such an important subject is so corrupt,” he said. “I am really distressed that the conversation – what started out to be a conversation about the amount of health care reform – is now about health insurance reform without people seeming to understand that health insurance is not medical care… The conversation is so disgustingly absurd it’s really hard to put up with it.”

He reiterated that the debate on insurance and coverage should not be the focus of reforming the U.S. health system and that President Barack Obama has not led the charge with enough strength. O’Neill particularly disagrees with Obama’s point that illegal immigrants should not receive coverage.

“I would have had him say ‘We have a problem in this country with illegal immigration and we need to work on that, but as president I’m here to tell you I believe, as a moral imperative, that if people show up at a care-giving facility in the United States we should not check their citizenship, we should give them the health and medical care they want,’” said O’Neill. “And I guarantee you the president would have restored his moral standing in the country instead of forfeiting it to people who want to make every issue into illegal immigration or abortion or some other divisive issue… I think without presidential leadership there’s no hope. There are so many members of Congress, while they wouldn’t admit it, they’ve been bribed … by the contributions that are made to support their elections.”

O’Neill said he believes if America increased the safety of care giving facilities for patients and staff, systemic improvement would lead to less illness and better care, reducing overall costs and sickness and putting money back on the table to help the country. Specifically, he said that preventable hospital-contracted nosocomial infections, the $1 trillion annual cost of wasted medication and the 300 million yearly medication errors in care giving facilities need to be publicly recorded and addressed.

The audience at the MRCBG event was left in no doubt that O’Neill feels the health care discussion is focusing on the wrong issues and he is disappointed with the conversation so far.