Notable and Quotable
Robert Goldberg came across a speech given on the 60th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service by CMS Administrator-nominee Don Berwick. Goldberg writes:
Berwick complained the American health system runs in the “darkness of private enterprise,” unlike Britain’s “politically accountable system.” The NHS is “universal, accessible, excellent, and free at the point of care — a health system that is, at its core, like the world we wish we had: generous, hopeful, confident, joyous, and just”; America’s health system is “toxic,” “fragmented,” because of its dependence on consumer choice. He told his UK audience: “I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do.”
Is this the same speech that is in the video below?
Perfect choice to run Medicare for the Obama Administration.
I had never heard of Don Berwick until about 2 weeks ago. He apparently spoke at a big conference that a friend of mine attended. She was somewhat awestruck by him and said, “He’s really going to shake things up in health care.”
I have done a little research, and I think she’s right. But, I’m not sure it’s for the best.
I had been involved in Health Care improvement before I retired. Dr Berwick was well known in the health quality improvement field; his books are the foundation of most hospital quality programs. His processes were responsible for a massive amount of waste reduction and he drive the transparency that resulted in hospitals now being ranked by how successful(and how many)specific procedures they performed. None of his writings or processes were the least bit political. (His close friend is Dr James Womack of MIT who was an early driver of the “lean” movement in the US. They often “cross pollinated” their specialties; with “lean practices” now very evident in most hospitals.)
I am very disappointed in his “socialist” sounding statements; but he is Harvard after all. If he could stay with his (non-political)health care quality expertise, Dr. Berwick would be an excellent choice.
George Daddis makes a good point. There are a lot of capable, competent poeple who are good in their particular fields but have no understanding of economics or how complex social systems work. These are good reasons to limit their power.