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Website | U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte (VA)
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Government Run Health Care: Little Choice and Long Lines
By Rep. Bob Goodlatte | 09/06/09 | 10:15 PM EDT | 6 Comments
While we can all agree that our current health care system is flawed there are many different ideas about how to fix it. Democratic Leaders in Congress have introduced and rushed through committee, the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act”. This one-size fits all proposal would steer the country toward a government-run health care system likely marked by little choice and long lines. I oppose this bill and the Democrat Leadership’s mad rush to ram the bill through with no opportunity for alternative ideas. Even commonsense amendments to this bill offered by House Republicans during the committee consideration were rejected by the Democratic Chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction over the health care reform legislation.
For instance, Congressman Dean Heller offered an amendment during the Ways and Means Committee mark-up that would have required Members of Congress to enroll immediately in the government-run health plan that would be established by this legislation. After all, if Members of Congress are convinced that the public, government-run option will deliver the same quality of care as their current health insurance plans, then they should be willing to enroll in the public option automatically. Congress should not ask the American people to make sacrifices they are not willing to make themselves. But that is exactly what is happening … Congressman Heller’s amendment was defeated.
Congressman Heller also offered another commonsense amendment. This one would have prevented taxpayer-funded health benefits from going to illegal immigrants. Any health care reform legislation that Congress considers must ensure that taxpayers are not responsible for paying for health care provided to individuals who are residing in the United States illegally but apparently the Democrats disagree. This sensible amendment was also defeated in the Ways and Means Committee.
Congressman Buck McKeon offered an amendment in the Education and Labor Committee that would modify the current Democratic bill to allow for the creation of Association Health Plans, known as AHPs. AHPs are an effective mechanism to extend coverage among the working uninsured by reducing the barriers that small employers currently face in providing coverage for their employees. AHPs are intended to increase incentives for employers to band together to purchase insurance coverage at lower rates for their employees. The way to revitalize our struggling American economy is by ensuring the stability of America’s small businesses and reducing the burden of increasing health care costs is a big part of that. Once again, this reasonable amendment was defeated.
These are just a few of the commonsense changes that House Republicans offered to improve the current health care reform bill, which is defined by federal regulation, mandates, a myriad of new big government programs, and a significant increase in federal spending. For Congress to accomplish meaningful health care reform we must work in a bipartisan fashion. I believe if House Republicans are not shut out of the legislative process and are instead allowed to offer our ideas we can craft a health care reform bill that the American people want – one that would make health care more affordable, reduce the number of uninsured, increase quality, and preserve consumer choices.
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Comments
Keep fighting this nonsense Congressman! Government should stay out of health care.
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|I can't believe that politicians are even considering this kind of medicine. It has faeled in Canada and in europe too. Why would we want to make the same mistakes.
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|As long as health insurance is a for-profit industry, it will never work. There will always be a board of executives who decides not to approve the cancer treatment for the two year old girl with cancer, cause she probably wont survive anyway.
The United States ranked in the high 30s for its system of healthcare, 40s for infant mortality, and 15 for life expectancy. something is wrong with this system, and the Republican way of solving it is telling the board that they are not allowed to deny patients. Guess what, they will do it anyway.
Also, Republicans should stop complaining that Democrats spend too much money on government programs. The biggest bureaucracy in the federal government is the department of homeland security, and that was created by George W. Bush.
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|Yes, this is freaking me out. My heart is racing and my hands are tremblings so bad that I can hardly keyboard.
I am already a victim of GOVERNMENT RUN
HEALTH CARE.
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria. The medicare program also funds residency training programs for the vast majority of physicians in the United States. Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system.
I am 70 and Medicare is my primary health care carrier. My secondary carrier is BC BS of North Dakota.
Just two weeks ago I decided that I needed to see my internist. I called at 7:45 AM for a same day appointment. I was asked why I wanted to see my doctor. I said I had been suffering from fatigue for about 10 days, ie rather vague symptom. I was told, "Dr.(my guy) can see you at 8:30 AM, can you make it?
I was there by 8:20. The traffic light goddess was kind to me in the 6th fastest growing city in the USofA.
I was weighed in and escorted to Dr. MyGuys office by 8:45 AM. Dr. MyGuy showed up shortly there after. He listened very carefully as my wife and I shared our various theories about my maladies. He spent a good long time with us and carefully keyboarded in the Sutter Health Care's state-of-the-art electronic medical records system. He would go back and check certain things when one of us would say, "Do you remember...?"
He ended up by saying he thought we should "cast a wide net" to check out an array of possible causes of my maladies. He put in a paperless order for bloodwork to be performed at the lab just up the stairs from Internal Medicine.
I was feeling so punk that my wife and I decided to go home rather than have the blood draws done right then. It was 9:30 as we walked to our car.
I drove out to the lab the first thing the next morning. I waited about 10 minutes after signing in. I killed this time by watching a movie on my iPod Touch. I was taken back and it was wam bam, the blood draws were done.
We called a week ago today to inquire about the results. They came back "within normal". We wanted to have a face-to-face sit down with Dr. MyGuy and that was arranged to fit our calendar, this coming Thursday.
My GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE works for me. I live in a Del Webb Sun City old folks community where mostly all of us are on the same GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE system. I get around alot in this community, playing golf and ACBL sanctioned duplicate bridge. My wife and I attend many, many dinner parties.
You know what, in the 8 years I have lived here, I have not heard one complaint about our GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE system...
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|My 95yo mom is on Medicare with a supplemental plan. NEVER does she have to call and get approvals for anything.
Never does she get a hassle about payment.
Her care is excellent.
People are freaking out over a bunch of nonsense.
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|I find it very interesting that opponents to a public healthcare option point out only the countries whose poublic option is not well run (eg, England, Canada). I lived and worked for 18 years in France whose public healthcare system is one of the best in the world. I never had to wait for an appointment with the Dr/specialist of my choice nor for hospital/lab visits. My payment (anywhere in France, with any Dr , hospital, or pharmacy) involved my presentation of a government issued plastic card that the would be scanned to verify my eligibility. I also paid a co-pay, US equivalent of $25.00, for Dr. visits. Pharmaceuticals were FREE . I paid 19% of my French salary for these medical benefits - and that 19% deduction also included US equivalent of Social security and medicare. And Healthcare privacy issues are much more stringent in France than the U/S.
I was shocked when I returned to the U.S. 3 years ago. My medical expenses (my Blue Cross/Blue Shield premiums, co-pay, services not covered, etc) have amounted to far more than 19% of my salary. I am limited to Drs and hospitals in my insurance network and often have to wait weeks to obtain a Dr. appt. I fill out endless paperwork for any medical service and spend hours trying to get BCBS to correct errors made because they did not correctly read the terms of my insurance plans.
Time to wake up America and come out of the healthcare dark ages. There are better options than making insurance companies rich with little benefit for the healthcare of the individual.
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