Health and Energy

Pawlenty pushes market solutions for health care.
Tim Pawlenty believes Minnesota needs a new model of health care based on expanded market-based reforms. In a health care policy talk last week, the GOP governor said that if people know for a fact that they are buying quality health care, they might spend their money more wisely.Price transparency is a cornerstone of a marketplace going forward,’ Pawlenty said.The governor gave his hour-long address at the University of Minnesota”s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.Pawlenty”s talk and a subsequent panel discussion featuring health-care experts was prompted by the 2008 health-care reform legislation that state lawmakers agreed to at the end of the legislative session in May.The legislation contains several provisions that are meant to improve the quality of health care in Minnesota. Among the key provisions is payment reform, which is supposed to get doctors to bill for procedures that will improve health, rather than for lots of procedures regardless of whether they”re necessary.more