CCHC Says: "The public should protest Govenor Pawlenty's QCare initiative

Saint Paul, Minnesota -- Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC) says Governor Pawlenty's new QCare initiative for all state-purchased health care services should be challenged. As the Governor is flying around the state of Minnesota today to promote the program and explain his executive order, Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC) has a very different message for the public.

Twila Brase, president of CCHC, makes the following statement:

"Governor Pawlenty is heading in the wrong direction. The governor is engaging in government micromanagement of medical decisions, rather than using his powerful position to implement patient-friendly, market-based health care reforms.

"Rather than empowering patients, QCare threatens to penalize their doctors.

"State employees, Medicaid recipients, and every Minnesota resident should protest. The governor is setting up a medical decision-making bureaucracy in state government focused on cutting costs. This is not about patient care. This is not about quality care.

"The Governor should retract his executive order, and focus on putting the incentives for cost-cutting where they belong: in the hands of patients. He should find every avenue to put the health care dollar into the hands of patients and consumers.

"QCare will put doctors in an untenable, unethical situation. If they listen to the government, they could get paid well. If they listen to the patient, they could lose their shirt.

"This initiative infringes on the patient-doctor relationship. Is this really the kind of health care the Governor wants everyone to have?"