Don Conant, general manager of Olympia-based Valley Nut and Bolt and a member of the AWB board of diretors, was one of several guests talking about health care reform this morning on KUOW radio's program, "Weekday."
Conant offered his perspective as a small business owner who is wary of national health care reform efforts, and provided a counterpoint to some of the other guests, including Democrat congress members Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, who are advocating for it.
You can listen to the program here.
The program aired the same day that an opinion piece co-authored by Conant and Judy Coovert, co-owner of PrintCom Inc. and also an AWB board member, was published in The Olympian.
In the article, Conant and Coovert argue that Americans should be wary of health care reforms that centralize control in the federal government given the experience with state health care reform efforts.
"Government-managed state reform plans like those tried in Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Maine have provided a clear indication of reforms that do not work," they write.
Those states have experienced an exodus of health insurance companies, less competition from health care providers, an increase in health care premiums, a decrease in the quality and availability of care, and an increase in the number of uninsured, according to Conant and Coovert.
"With this in mind, it would be a mistake to give government even greater control over health," they write.
AWB President Don Brunell wrote on the subject earlier this month, urging Congress to slow down and not rush a major health care overhaul.
