So you don’t have to…

You may have missed it unless you work in health care…in fact, I can almost guarantee it, but the State of New Mexico held a “Input Meeting” on New Mexico’s Comprehensive Strategic Health Plan. Now, as an advocate of free markets and individual choice, the very concept of the government having a “comprehensive” plan for my health is distasteful and the idea that governments can even make decisions in a “strategic” fashion is a bad joke.
But, the meeting was held and I attended one of the panels on financing health care in Albuquerque. Not surprisingly, for a day-long meeting, nearly all of the attendees were either employed by government or work directly for a particular interest group. Average New Mexicans simply did not attend. More importantly — and perhaps as a result of the self-interested attendees — the primary topic of discussion was “what can government do for me?” Unfortunately, as long as the focus of health care reform is on government doing more rather than less, the problems in our health care “system” will worsen.
For a look at the framework on which discussion of the State’s so-called strategic plan was based, check out the word document found here.