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posted March 26 10:28 a.m.
Innovation and personal responsibility are the keys to fixing the country's health care problems, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told a crowd of 400 health care professionals and educators at Clayton Hall Tuesday.
The conservative stalwart turned health care analyst gave the keynote address at the university's day-long forum "Stronger Health-Based Partnerships," an event that invited leaders in health education, research and service to discuss solutions for the future.
In his speech, Gingrich said because science is advancing quicker than ever, it's important to craft a health care policy that can change just as fast.
"Whatever this year's solution is will not be the solution five years from now," Gingrich said, "so we've got to think about something which we've never done very well, that is, designing government structures that are powerfully evolving and adapting."
He said the primary nature of health care is changing - no longer is the focus on stopping the spread of infectious diseases or providing acute care. Instead, with the advances in medicine allowing the population to live longer, the focus needs to be on treating chronic llnesses.
Because of this, Gingrich said, politicians need to stop thinking of health care reform only in financial terms, as throwing money at the problem will not create solutions. Far more important, he said, is instilling in the public a sense of personal responsibility for one's own health.
"If you're going to take care of diabetes or asthma," he said, "you're going to do most of the work, not the nurse."
After leaving Congress in 1999, Gingrich became active in advocating health care reform. In 2003, he founded the Center for Health Transformation, which researches and advocates the issue.
Calling government-paid health care "very, very dangerous," Gingrich told the crowd the best alternative is to provide tax credits to Americans to purchase their own health insurance.
"I'd feel much more secure in a country where everyone had insurance than one where you had a single-payer bureaucracy," he said.
Another aspect of Gingrich's plan is fostering more community activities focused on promoting healthy behavior. Students who live close enough should have to walk to school, he said, and schools should be mandated to provide physical education five days per week, a suggestion that drew loud cheers from the crowd.
"Having a society that doesn't walk, that doesn't exercise, sits in front of the TV and then varies that by sitting in front of the computer game is in fact not a society that is going to be healthy in the long run," Gingrich said. "We're in grave danger of the next generation being the first generation in American history to have a worse health and a shorter lifetime."
Taking aim at working mothers who "neglect" their children, he said the tax code should provide huge incentives for mothers to say home. Research shows children raised by mothers who are homemakers know more by the time they get to school, he said, and the trend toward two-income homes has hurt society.
"We've spent the last 40 years going on a huge detour or else it's the end of our civilization," Gingrich said.
He also advocated mandatory drug testing "across a very wide range" in order to curb America's appetite for illegal drugs, which he said is fueling violence in Mexico and Colombia. Aggressive testing could severely cripple the drug trade in two years, he said.
"It is disgraceful that we don't have the guts to stop drugs in this country," Gingrich said.
Earlier in the day, Gingrich drew praise from an unlikely source on the other side of the political aisle - Delaware Gov. Jack Markell.
"I probably don't agree with Newt Gingrich on many things, but he's an incredibly intelligent guy," Markell said in a speech. "I've heard him speak on several occasions and he's very insightful. I've been told that on health care, he's not far away from where the president is."
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