President Obama is repeating Clinton-era mistakes of the ’90s in trying to overhaul the health-care system, taking a “fundamentally dishonest approach to reform,” says Bobby Jindal , Louisiana’s Republican governor, in an op-ed in today’s WSJ . Jindal faults the Clinton plan because it was “concocted in secret without the guiding hand of public consensus-building, and because it was a philosophical over-reach.” In the Obama-led effort, he targets the “hollow” promise that Americans can keep their current health-care plans. He says this isn’t true because the Democrats’ goal is to get more people to join the public health plan that has been proposed in various bills, which would allow the government plan to set prices. Another “myth” he sees is that government involvement won’t lower the quality of care. “For all of us who have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to hurricanes, this contention is

laughable on its face,” Jindal scoffs. He suggests a number of principles that could lead to bipartisan support for reform, some of which he brought up during his response to Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress in February. For instance, Jindal says, there should be transparency in pricing for medical tests, procedures and therapies (read here and here for examples of the current opaque pricing system). He also calls for financially rewarding consumers for participating in cost-effective health, reducing frivolous lawsuits — as Obama has mentioned as well — and for improving insurance policies so they offer more coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Notably, he suggests pooling insurance benefits for small businesses, allowing them to purchase coverage through “employer, church, union, etc.,” but not through a public plan. Photo: Associated Press

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Jindal: Obama’s Dishonesty about Health-Care Reform