SCI draft gets mixed reviews

The State Coverage Initiative’s draft recommendations were the subject of two recent opinion pieces, each drawing different conclusions.

In an op-ed piece published May 30 in the Hillsboro Times-Gazette, Marc Kilmer, a policy analyst at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, criticized the document for including recommendations related to mandated health insurance (Source: “Mandating insurance is a mistake,” Hillsboro Times-Gazette, May 30, 2008).

"The answer to our problems lies in more freedom for consumers, not in more mandates by the government,” Kilmer wrote.

On Sunday, the Akron Beacon-Journal published an editorial commending the SCI for its work (Source: “Ambitious for Ohio," Akron Beacon-Journal, June 8, 2008).

"The case for overhauling the health-care system is obvious, residing in the value of a healthy population and the harm in leaving hundreds of thousands in the state without sufficient access to care,” the paper wrote.