Newt Gingrich, Founder, Center for Health Transformation
Biography provided by participant
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation, a collaboration of leaders dedicated to the creation of a 21st Century Intelligent Health System that saves lives and saves money. He is also the founder of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm specializing in transformational change, and serves as a political analyst for FOX News Network, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
Gingrich served as a Member of Congress for twenty years and as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999. He is widely recognized as the chief architect of the Republican Contract with America and the key strategist and leader behind the 1994 Republican victory, which created the first GOP majority in Congress in forty years. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, the first balanced budget in a generation, and the first tax cuts in sixteen years.
Gingrich's leadership helped save Medicare from bankruptcy, prompted FDA reform to help the seriously ill and initiated a new focus on research, prevention and wellness. In 1998 the American Diabetes Association awarded him their highest non-medical award and the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Georgia Citizen of the Year. He currently focuses on health issues in the private sector as founder of the Center for Health Transformation and is a board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Newt also serves with former Senator Bob Kerrey as Co-Chairman of the National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care. In addition, he is a member of the Advisory Board for the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) and for the National Library of Medicine. A leading advocate of increased federal funding for basic science research, in 2001 he was the recipient of the Science Coalition's first Science Pioneer award, given to him for outstanding contributions to educating the public about science and its benefits to society.
Most recently, Gingrich received the 2005 Health Quality Award from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to improve health care quality everywhere. He has also been honored with the 2005 National Minority Health Month Foundation Award for his contributions to the elimination of diabetes, and with the 2005 HIMSS Advocacy Award for leadership in advancing information and management systems for the betterment of human health (the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society).
Gingrich is the author of nine books including the bestsellers "Winning the Future," "Contract With America" and "To Renew America," as well as "Saving Lives and Saving Money," which describes the Center for Health Transformation's 21st Century Intelligent Health System.
Mr. Gingrich resides in Virginia with his wife, Callista. The Gingrich family includes two daughters, two sons in-law, and two grandchildren.
Slow Down And Stop Spending Without a doubt, the time has come to reform our healthcare system. But the direction reform proposals have taken over the past 10 months have been alarming. Today, I signed a letter, along with dozens of other national leaders, lawmakers, and former administration officials, calling on President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid to abandon current healthcare legislation and instead seek sound, bipartisan solutions that increase quality, lower costs and don’t break the bank. Read the letter. Dear President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Reid: There is no doubt that improving healthcare for all Americans… Read more
Congress Needs To Get Serious Updated at 11:18 a.m. on Nov. 18. These responses are a good indication of why fraud in Medicare and Medicaid has festered for decades and now reaches into the tens of billions of dollars annually. It largely goes unacknowledged and/or is dismissed in favor of discussing other issues. For example, the mention of tax evasion is completely unrelated to a health care blog (But on that topic, it is worth noting that tax evasion is highest in high-tax jurisdictions both domestically and internationally so lower, flatter taxes would go a long way toward ameliorating tax… Read more
In last week’s health care speech to Congress, President Obama called for “demonstration projects” in individual states to “test” civil justice reform proposals. Quite frankly, the time for “testing” or “demonstration projects” is over. Today, there are numerous success stories on the state level. States like California and Texas have enacted reform measures that have significantly improved access to health care, reduced costs, and strengthened economies. More than 30 years ago, California passed landmark legislation that ensures injured patients receive fair compensation while preserving patients’ access to health care services. Since then, California has had the most stable professional liability… Read more
Tom, you are onto something when you wonder if our federal agencies are up to the task of implementing real change in healthcare. The public sector's track record of measuring whether policy changes, new strategies, etc. actually work as envisioned is not encouraging. In the private sector, people are held accountable if their plans do not succeed. This rarely happens in government. But would a federal health board help this? Healthcare is simply too complex for one group to “manage our system.” While I understand the conceptual advantages, such as avoiding politicians’ micromanaging, the dangers of a centralized health board… Read more
Creating an employer mandate to provide healthcare coverage is a mistake that would be costly in terms of both money and jobs. In fact, a study recently released by the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation indicated that an employer mandate related to healthcare coverage would eliminate 1.6 million jobs in just five years and reduce the GDP by around $200 billion. Furthermore, in order to mandate healthcare coverage, a key question would have to be answered: what do we mandate? The predictable outcome of the legislative and regulatory process of answering that question will be for… Read more
President Obama is right: we cannot wait any longer to fix the problems we face in health - they are beyond critical. We waste billions of dollars every day and people die unnecessarily every day at the hands of a broken, fragmented healthcare system. Where there are challenges, there are also opportunities, and we at the Center for Health Transformation believe that the most important thing we must keep in mind is to ensure that health is the driving focus of the health reform debate. By reforming the delivery system so that every American gets the best health… Read more
The stimulus legislation is like putting a band-aid on a heart attack: It does very little to address the fundamental problems we face in health. Consumers will still find barrier after barrier to getting insurance coverage if they lose it. At the Center for Health Transformation, we have long advocated free, fair, and functioning markets as the essential element to expanding coverage. Specific changes like a nationwide marketplace for individuals to purchase insurance and equalizing the tax benefits for those who purchase insurance on their own and those who receive insurance through their employer are key elements to expanding coverage.… Read more
COBRA coverage is, by law, 102 percent of the full cost of that employer’s group plan. Largely due to that very high cost, only roughly 20 percent of COBRA-eligible people actually exercise their COBRA rights. And most of them have calculated that despite the high premium, they would take more dollars out of the pool than they would put in. Obviously this is an unsustainable model. A better solution would be to make people more aware of options in the individual market. According to ehealthinsurance, the largest online broker of individual policies, the national average annual cost of… Read more
The news that healthcare spending “only” increased by 6.1%, the lowest rate since 1998, is just the latest evidence that healthcare is broken. With healthcare costs outpacing inflation, economic growth, and wage increases, Americans fell further behind. We all know that for this increased spending, we failed to produce better quality. However, I am encouraged by the words of President-elect Obama and Congressional leaders to finally tackle these problems head on. But we must do it right. The focus needs to be 1) creating a payment system that incentivizes the adoption of evidence-based care; 2) building an interoperable nationwide electronic… Read more
This will all depend on where the Democratic majority goes with health reform. If they focus solely on expanding insurance coverage, costs will continue to explode, with government on the hook to pay for more and more. Expanding coverage in a broken system offers no long-term solution. Having insurance does not guarantee that you will get quality care. Improving health and delivering better care is where we should focus. The Congress and the President should focus on health-based health reform, not coverage-based reform. There is more than enough money in the system to pay for quality-improvement reforms. It’s… Read more
Biography provided by participant
