PORTSMOUTH — Former New York City Mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani believes the federal government should encourage the states to come up with health-care solutions, but is against state regulations that would help implement those solutions.That was one of the points made during a Giuliani campaign press conference announcing that the mayor would release details of his plan for addressing rising health-care costs that impact both consumers and businesses today.
Giuliani Visit
Where: The Governor's Inn, 78 Wakefield St., Rochester
When: Today. Doors open at 10 a.m.
Guiliani to speak at 10:30 a.m.
“The mayor wants to create incentives to states to create solutions, just as they have with Medicaid,” said Dr. Dan Kessler, a member of Giuliani’s health-care policy team.
However, another team member participating in the telephone conference call set up by the campaign Monday in anticipation of the mayor’s visit to Rochester this afternoon, made it clear Giuliani is opposed to the states imposing their own regulations on the insurance industry.
“There is a need to deregulate the insurance industry so companies can sell across state lines,” said Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute and Giuliani health-care team member. “We need to have insurance departments in the states relax their standards.”
Steve Goldsmith, Giuliani’s chief domestic policy adviser, said the mayor instructed him to set up a health-care policy that gives more power to individuals and less to the bureaucracy.
This involves ending the policies that separate patients from care givers; letting the market determine the best system, not the government; urging the development of health-care insurance products that meet individual needs; and “respecting states where innovation has occurred” and using that innovation nationally, Goldsmith said.
Dr. Mark McClellan, currently the director of the Center for Health Care Reform and a member of the Giuliani team, said the mayor’s plan would use tax deductions and credits to give every American a chance to have insurance; would improve quality, not spend more money; and would establish accountability with an emphasis on what is working in the states.
Giuliani was in New Hampshire Monday speaking to voters in the Lakes Region. After his talk in Rochester today he is off to Connecticut, where he will announce his health-care policy at Norwalk Hospital.
