“There are serious questions that are associated with policy aspects of the health care reform bills that we’re seeing,” said Gail Wilensky, a veteran health care expert who oversaw the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs for the first President George Bush and advised Senator John McCain in his presidential campaign last year.

“And there’s frustration because so much of the discussion is around issues like the death panels and Zeke Emanuel that I think are red herrings at best,” she said, referring to a health care adviser to President Obama whose views on some issues have been misrepresented by opponents…

t government should try to change the health care system through tax policy rather than direct intervention.

“We profoundly disagree with this notion of a large, centralized restructuring of the health system,” said Stuart M. Butler, a vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. “You’ve got to devise a system that starts to change underlying incentives — the policy incentives — and allow a gradual change in the system over time.”