Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., answered questions from a small group of UF students and professors on health care legislation, obesity and Haiti recovery via satellite Monday night.
Frist, who is a surgeon, was scheduled to appear with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in January, but the doctor missed the event to help with earthquake recovery in Haiti.
About 30 students and professors watched the senator speak from Tennessee while in the College of Journalism and Communications’ 21st Century News Laboratory in Weimer Hall.
Republican leaders have been critical of the health care bill. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, even said the recently passed legislation would “ruin our country.”
But Frist, who said he’s out of politics and more worried about policy now, said the health care bill is “80 percent good” but “20 percent has the potential of being very destructive.”
That destructiveness, Frist said, will come from the legislation’s high price tag.
Democrats say the legislation will save money, but Frist believes the reform will actually increase the federal deficit.
The former senator said while he believes the bill will increase coverage among Americans who need it, the bill wouldn’t bring down health care costs.
Frist said Americans spend more on health care but don’t have outcomes as good as some European countries not because the country has a market system, but because of America’s behavior and environmental factors.
Republicans have said the health care bill leads the country toward socialism and further government control, but Frist, who worked as a doctor in England’s National Health Service, disagreed.
“We’re not a socialized system,” he said. “We’re about as far from it as we can get.”
One of his sons was born while he was living in England, and Frist said he received “unbelievably good primary care.”
“We didn’t have to pay anything, which was amazing,” he said.
But Frist said there was a downside to England’s socialized system. He said very specialized care for ailments like cancer was harder to get, and patients have fewer options.
Dr. Nancy Hardt, an associate dean at UF’s College of Medicine, said she thought Frist was very moderate compared to the Republicans in Congress.
She asked the senator a question on doctors treating patients with emphasis on value instead of volume.
Frist said part of the health care bill aimed at valuing outcomes might give the government more control, but overall he liked the proposal.
