Rick Perry has controversial ideas on health care overhaul

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Perry wrestles with his own health care approach
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR - Associated Press.

Texas would be among the biggest beneficiaries of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, standing to gain coverage for nearly 4 million uninsured residents.

But Gov. Rick Perry blocked moves to lay the groundwork for that expansion of coverage, and among the alternatives he's supported is an untested regional solution that could prove as controversial as Obama's remake.

With Perry running for the Republican presidential nomination, health care in Texas and his own ideas as governor will get fly-speck scrutiny on the national stage. His state is a study in contrasts, boasting world-renowned facilities like the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, along with the highest proportion of uninsured residents of any state — 26 percent.

As a national candidate Perry has made total repeal of "Obamacare" central to his fledgling campaign. But it's unclear what he would put in its place. And if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds all or parts of the law, Perry has signaled that he would help carry out key provisions to avoid defaulting to the federal bureaucracy.

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... Perry has advocated a range of health care fixes, including national caps on malpractice lawsuits, conversion to electronic medical records and efforts to keep patients healthy and out of hospitals. He also signed legislation this year that would clear the way for Texas to explore a health care overhaul in conjunction with other states.

That may sound like an innocuous proposal, but it could turn out to be more controversial than Obama's overhaul.

The idea behind so-called state compacts is for the federal government to turn over Medicare and Medicaid funds to a group of states to use as they deem best for their citizens' needs. It would be the biggest re-engineering since the giant health care programs were created in the 1960s — assuming that groups of states could actually agree on what to do and Congress would give its consent.

"How could any one state control its costs?" asked Bob Laszewski, a health policy consultant to industry. It's like the Euro zone, he added, referring to Europe's troubled economies. "It's not states' rights anymore. These states would have to cede a lot of authority to a new entity."
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