August 22, 2009 07:10 PM UTC

Salazar and the Public Option

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• by: ClubTwitty

(I worry that my dog is blue… – promoted by ClubTwitty)

From today’s Sentinel

Salazar to highlight local health system in letter to Obama

[Headers removed]

The Grand Junction health-care system will be highlighted in a letter from U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., to President Obama – much to the delight of the physicians, nurses, insurance company officials and others who met with Salazar on Friday.

Salazar said he’ll take the ideas he heard at the roundtable at Grand Junction-based Rocky Mountain Health Plans first to the Blue Dog Coalition and ask those conservative Democrats to sign on to the letter to Obama.

Although the article, by Gary Harmon, mentions the public option, it remains unclear–from the reporting–where exactly Rep. Salazar stands.

UPDATE- Ralphie’s comment, below, pointed toward an article, wherein Rep. Salazar expresses support for a public option, but doubts that it will pass.  That article was written before Salazar met with healthcare folks in Junction, and the Harmon piece was written afterwards.  

Rather than calling to ask, it is more likely time to urge that Congressman Salazar join the growing number of his colleagues in the House, and push for meaningful healthcare reform that includes a public option.  

Now back to the original…

The article continues:

The Grand Junction system – the result of a collaboration of several nonprofit organizations – could be mimicked elsewhere, Salazar was told.

One thing that would be of little help and possibly of harm to Grand Junction and similar systems would be the so-called “public option,” [emphasis Twitty’s] a government-run health insurance company that Obama has supported, but from which the president seemed to distance himself one week ago at Central High School.

So, is this Harmon’s opinion?  The “doctors and nurses,” or Salazar’s?  One cannot tell from the article.  Two paragraphs later we get a clue, in the words ‘Salazar was told.’

Improving the cost effectiveness of the health care system would require tort reform that would free physicians from the demands of defensive medicine and include incentives to encourage collaboration among professionals and patients taking better care of themselves.

Legal barriers such as antitrust kinds of actions to which the Grand Junction system was subject more than a decade ago also need to be removed, Salazar was told.

Making a statement–on a key policy issue–as fact, with no citation until two paragraphs later, and then somewhat vaguely (is this stated in the letter, by a specific person, by a group??) is poor reporting (or editing).

It leaves the reader wondering about a central question–Does Rep. John Salazar support or oppose a public option?

It may be time for those of his constituents who do to contact the congressman and get an answer.

Phone numbers for Rep. John Salazar

DC: 202-225-4761

GJ: 970-245-7107

Pueblo:  719-543-8200

Alamosa: 719-587-5105

Durango: 970-259-1012