By Evan Falchuk

I am speaking tomorrow at the National Business Group on Health’s Business Health Agenda, here in Washington DC. Last night, before I arrived, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), spoke about the ongoing efforts to reform healthcare. Tonight, it was Newt Gingrich’s turn. For the last several years, Newt has been running a health care think tank, and has plenty to say (as always) on the subject. Gingrich said that healthcare reform had to be thought of in four boxes: first, that people are engaged in their health and taking care of themselves. Second, that we use government action to help people live healthier lives. He used the example of giving tax breaks to supermarkets that carry fresh, healthy food and even further, making it so that an equivalent amount of food stamps buy a greater amount of healthy food than junk food. Third, he said we needed to improve the care delivery system through things like electronic medical records, and fourth, and last, he said we need to deal with the financing of care. In his view, if we focus on how to finance care, we will miss out on dealing with the issues driving healthcare costs in the first place.

Gingrich said that the federal government ought to set these goals for healthcare reform – including universal coverage – and leave it up to the states to figure out how to implement it, using federal government money. He seemed to think that much of the money needed to do this could be found by cracking down on fraud in the state and federal medicare programs.

I don’t know how realistic any of that is, but it sounds like we’re going to be hearing a lot more from Newt on this subject in the months to come.