HERMITAGE Ex-U.S. Treasury secretary focuses on health care, education in forum

The former Cabinet official also said the world needs more leaders.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- Paul O'Neill didn't want to talk about serving as U.S. Treasury secretary or the book generating controversy about his time with the Bush administration.
Instead, he spoke to a group of Shenango Valley community leaders in a forum sponsored by the Pennsylvania Economy League about health care, education and regionalization, issues that he has worked on for years and for which he said he still has energy and passion.
O'Neill, who lives in Pittsburgh, was part of the George W. Bush Cabinet for 23 months before leaving his post in December 2002.
Critical book
A book by Ron Suskind about his service as Secretary of the Treasury, "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill," is critical of the Bush administration.
In it, O'Neill alleges that Bush began planning to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq within days of assuming the presidency in 2001, without having any hard evidence that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
O'Neill didn't discuss the book during his appearance.
He did respond later to one question from a reporter who asked if, as Treasury secretary, he would have been in a position to see evidence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"I was a member of the National Security Council. I saw all the evidence," O'Neill replied without further elaboration.
O'Neill told a group of about 75 people that he still has "energy and passion" about how our society can do so much more to benefit our lives and our nation.
Shortage of leaders
"The greatest skill shortage in the world is leaders. We need more leaders," he said.
O'Neill revealed what he said is his "notion of leadership."
Leaders take responsibility and accountability for everything in their domain, and they take away the excuses for why things aren't done.
Health care has been an issue for him since leaving graduate school in 1961, he said. He began working for the U.S. Veterans Administration at that time to look at the best ways to spend the people's money in that area.
He later helped write the first Health Maintenance Organization legislation and got involved locally five or six years ago when he was approached to co-chair a group looking at improving health care on a regional basis in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Cutting health-care costs
He thinks the country can cut health-care costs in the United States by 50 percent while improving patient outcomes.
Some of that can be accomplished just by eliminating medical mistakes, particularly in medications, and getting medical care professionals to follow procedures that prevent patients from picking up new infections in hospitals.
There are 42 hospitals in the region working in a group effort to improve health care, he said, adding that the region can become a demonstration of what excellence should mean in the field.
In the area of education, O'Neill said every 10-year-old should have the mastery of basic reading, writing and computing skills to the point where they could be "independent" of organized education and capable of learning on their own.
Great schools are OK, but we must be sure that the pupils are "getting it," he said.
Toward that end, children should be assessed, not tested, at the age of 4 or 41/2 to determine if they understand the concept of things such as numbers and colors.
Intervention can then be devised as needed to help those children who need assistance, he added.