Health care exchange panel says Haley emails didn't matter
By Renee Dudley
rdudley@postandcourier.com
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Members of a planning committee dominated by the governor's appointees insisted Wednesday they reached their own conclusions about how the state should implement federal health care reform.
One Democrat on the committee, though, said the panel's November report drew foregone conclusions.
The comments follow a story Wednesday in The Post and Courier detailing newly released emails that show Gov. Nikki Haley ordered the panel's findings in March, before the group met for the first time.
The Health Planning Committee's findings mirrored Haley's directive that "the whole point of this commission should be to figure out how to opt out and how to avoid a federal takeover, NOT create a state exchange."
A central part of the federal health care overhaul, an exchange is a marketplace where various insurance plans eventually will be sold.
Evelyn Perry, a Charleston small-business owner whom Haley appointed to the panel, called the governor's emails "distasteful" but said the group agreed on the final recommendations without being directly influenced.
"In my mind, I think it was a legitimate conclusion," Perry said. "The amount of research and work that went into it -- I don't think that went down the drain."
But at least one member of the committee took a dimmer view.
S.C. Rep. David Mack, a Charleston Democrat appointed by S.C. House Speaker Robert Harrell, said he resigned himself to being a minority voice on the committee from the start.
"You could tell by the composition of that committee what the result was going to be," he said. "It was handpicked. The numbers are set to get a certain outcome."
more:
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/dec/15/panel-haley-emails-didnt-matter/
DO SOMETHING!
| 