Fourteen members have been named to a new task force on health care reform, created by the Minnesota Legislature last session.
The group will look at how Minnesota will implement the federal health care bill and issue a report in December.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s appointments are:
State agency representatives
- Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman, chair
- Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson, member
- Health Commissioner Dr. Sanne Magnan, non-voting member
Leaders in health care organizations and health plans
- Carolyn Jones, senior director, Express Scripts
- William H. Wenmark, former chairman and founder, NOW Medical Centers
- Henry T. Van Dellen, senior vice president, Health and Welfare Practice Leader, Aon Consulting
Labor and business community representatives
- Harry Melander, Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council
- Scott Walker, United Brotherhood of Carpenters
- Chris Schneeman, SevenHills Benefit Partners
Experts in financing, access and quality
- Fran Bradley, former chairman, House Health and Human Services Finance Committee
- Charles Montreuil, vice president of Human Resources, Best Buy
- Peter Nelson, policy fellow, Center of the American Experiment
- Stephen Parente, director, Medical Industry Leadership Institute, Carlson School of Management
- Elisabeth Quam, executive director, CDI Quality Institute, Center for Diagnostic Imaging
The Legislature also will make four appointments to the task force.
Health care reform?
Hopefully, Stephen Parente has learned a little since his embarrassing embrace of Dr. McGuire.
From the Star-Tribune ( http://bit.ly/buMiFV )
“Parente said his approach to McGuire was along the lines of: “We don’t really care about the stock options. You know stuff. Tell us what you think.”
“Parente said McGuire knew of him from his research into consumer-driven health plans, which are high-deductible plans linked to health savings accounts. Parente is known nationally for his work tracking the development of these new plans and he is a health adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign.”
Ethics concerns discussed
There was some discussion within the school, Parente said, on whether it was appropriate to engage McGuire, given the lawsuits and investigations in which he was embroiled. The conclusion was that it was.
“It’s one thing if you’re bringing in a criminal to speak. But if someone’s under investigation, that’s fair game,” he said.
Since then, McGuire has acted as “ad hoc kitchen-cabinet adviser” to him, Parente said.
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Political agenda, indeed…
I hope Parente has found his moral compass.
As opposed to his moral flexibility.
Two thoughts: 1) At this moment to leave the Minnesota Nurses Association unrepresented shows what a irresponsible “leader” Pawlenty is. 2) To fail to step in to the TCH-MNA labor conflict by calling the major stakeholders together to discuss how to settle shows what an irresponsible “leader” Pawlenty is. Is it flaming to call him a “dolt”?
Any reform coming out of this group will not deserve the name. It is another case of Pawlenty
reaching out to his corporate base.
Fran Bradley has written with excoriating derision of HCR in the Rochester Post Bulletin. He has pledged to overthrow it, as I recall. Appointing him to a panel to implement is cycnicism at its deepest.
I finally found the Fran Bradley op-ed on HCR, no longer posted online, but which ran April 21. Disclosure, I also write a monthly op-ed for the PB and produced a counter-column to this Bradley column, in which I supported the bill.
He does not pledge to overthrow it: though since that is the campaign promise of nearly every GOP office seeker, and Bradley is active in local GOP politics, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was his position as well.
He does refer to the bill as rife with “gimmicks and dirty deals,” and “liberal, big-government ideologies” and states that “a country drowning in debt cannot afford huge entitlement expansions that further expand the debt.” He concludes his piece by singling out the congressmen who voted for the bill and promising that “the next election should be a wake-up call to those who have tried to fool the public — NO MORE GIMMICKS OR DIRTY DEALS!” Caps all his.
In other words, in appointing Fran Bradley, the governor has selected someone to help implement the HCR program in the state who is on the record as opposed to its success, and who is seemingly dedicated to the removal from office of those who passed it. I imagine then that we are all paying for the service on this panel of persons set upon obstructing the process for which they will be paid. What a joke.