Two newspapers on Friday published opinion pieces on health care issues related to Hurricane Katrina. Summaries appear below.E.J. Dionne, Washington Post: A Republican Study Committee proposal to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending to offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina recovery would help "Katrina's poor and suffering victims" but require "other poor and suffering people ... to sacrifice," Dionne, a Post columnist, writes in an opinion piece. The RSC proposal and the reaction of Republican leaders to the plan indicate "how fundamentally stupid our budget policies have been over the past five years," Dionne writes (Dionne, Washington Post, 9/23).

Robert Goldberg, Washington Times: The "best untold story" of Hurricane Katrina is how health care information technology and "vouchers have been used to make health care immediately available and, ultimately, portable," Goldberg, director of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute, writes in a Times opinion piece. "We must avoid the nationalization of the health care system that followed in Europe after the devastation of World War II," Goldberg writes, adding that the U.S. should use federal funds to establish a national electronic health records system and "provide consumers with tax credits and vouchers for purchasing health care coverage that travels with them, just as their cell phones do." He concludes, "Let's create a personalized and portable health system that responds to their specific needs, not a political urge to perpetuate existing problems" (Goldberg, Washington Times, 9/23).

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