Health Care

A pilot vocational-education course in health care that has federal funding was approved by the Marple Newtown school board at its business meeting last Thursday. The program in allied health and science technology is a cooperative undertaking by the Marple Newtown and Radnor School Districts and Bryn Mawr Hospital, said Thomas G. Kerr, Marple Newtown assistant superintendent for instruction and staff development. Educators expect about 15 high-school juniors to attend the satellite health-care classes next year at Radnor High School and to do clinical laboratory work at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

It is time that we in the United States learn to think of health care as an economic opportunity, not a liability. Despite America's well-documented health-care delivery problems, America's actual health care is the best in the world. U.S. firms are responsible for some of the most important innovations in pharmacology and medical technology. Wealthy foreigners routinely come to the United States for advanced medical services with the best possible outcomes. To take advantage of this position, President Bush should create a new undersecretary for health in the Department of Commerce to promote the American system of health care worldwide.

The real debate on national health care began yesterday in the Senate. After all of the wrangling, fact twisting, name calling and out and out lies that have emerged for more than a year, I am still confused on the issue and uncertain as to where the debate will go. And I don't think I'm alone on that. I'm sure there are people out there who work in health-related fields or know the workings of Congress who are just as confused as I am. As do most Americans, I understand the need for reform.

By Peter W. Carmel Physicians know that when tackling complex medical challenges, having the right tool makes a difference. A scalpel, for instance, provides the precision and control needed to address a specific area without harming the entire body. The same precision is needed when policymakers attempt to treat the fiscal challenges facing our health-care safety-net programs. In the face of the current growth trajectory for national health spending, the instinct for many policymakers is to attack the problem with the bluntest weapon possible.

THAT W. sure can manufacture a crisis: There are articles and reports everywhere on his scheme to dismantle Social Security (I refuse to call it reform) with high-stakes gambling in the stock market. And just like in that other manufactured crisis, Iraq, President Bush's promises to "fix" the Social Security system makes it seem like it'll be a cakewalk, with future retirees hailing him for liberating them from drab retirement security. Mt. Rushmore, here he comes. As for the real, right-now domestic crisis in health-care costs and availability, Bush and the GOP offer up only another manufactured crisis: Malpractice insurance rates are the most significant factor in health care, the president declared recently.

HARRISBURG - Six months after the federal health care bill became law, Democrat Dan Onorato is contending his Republican opponent for governor is waffling on his position on the issue. Onorato noted Wednesday that Attorney General Tom Corbett, the GOP's gubernatorial nominee, in March joined a group of mostly Republican attorneys general around the country in filing suit to block the law on constitutional grounds. And in a letter to potential donors later that month, Corbett wrote that "under no circumstances" would he go along with this "big-government, special-interest takeover of our health care.

The recent layoff of about 1,200 local health-care workers at Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation was a loss to the organization and to the community. Yet it should have come as no shock to those who have followed developments in government health-care policy. When layoffs occur, some people look to assign blame. But that's a temptation we must avoid if we want to deal seriously and effectively with our region's economic and health issues. The most critical issue is the severe financial squeeze facing health-care systems.

Aside from God, who has been endorsed by both major political parties, the big issue in the presidential campaign is health care. Every time we turn on the TV, we see either an ad from the Republicans telling us how horrible Al Gore's health-care plan is, or an ad from the Democrats telling us how horrible George W. Bush's plan is. So to summarize what we, as voters, have learned from this campaign: If Gore is elected: Health care will be controlled...

Thanks to the tribulations of a baseball legend, the national health-care debate is heating up again. Not that dull discussion of how to expand access and control costs for millions of Americans, but how Mickey Mantle got his new liver - and got it so fast. Only Tuesday, Mantle got on the transplant waiting list. Next day, an organ was found and surgery began. The average wait for a liver is 145 days - nearly five months. Nationwide, nearly 5,000 people are on the list for livers right now. Some will die waiting.

It's appropriate that our Fourth of July celebrations coincided with a moment when the Supreme Court's health-care decision prompted intense debate over the purpose of our government and what the Constitution allows it to do. We are a more philosophical people than we give ourselves credit for. Constitutional questions enter the political conversation here more than in most countries because our diverse nation is bound by our founding principles, not...