Spotlights proposed violation of rights and health care rationing

Minneapolis/Saint Paul - The Minnesota Health Care Task Force report is due tomorrow, Friday, February 1, 2008. In response to the expected report, the Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC) has issued a Citizens' Report of Dissent.

"Whatever claims may be made when the Governor's Task Force report is announced, we doubt that the concerns listed in our report will be mentioned. However, one simple read-through of the Task Force recommendations makes it clear that the proposed transformation principles and strategies would negatively impact patient right of privacy and individual care," said Twila Brase, president of CCHC.

Brase says the Task Force recommendations would:

• Jeopardize Individual Privacy and Self-Determination
• Impose Privacy Intrusions & Limits on Care
• Impose Conflicts of Interest
• Support Health Care Rationing
• Mandate Universal Health Care and Bureaucratic Health Insurance Exchange
• Create Unelected Super Agency; Increase Provider Tax

CCHC's Citizens' Report of Dissent concludes by saying,

"If implemented, the Minnesota Health Care Transformation Task Force recommendations would impose intrusive monitoring on citizens and patients, improperly provide doctors, clinicians, clinics, and hospitals with a multitude of financial incentives to ration medical care, and leave patients with little reason to personally reduce their utilization of health care services."

Twila Brase can be reached at 651-646-8935 (office).