Daily Local News: Local Opponents Blast Obama Health Plan
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Local opponents blast Obama health plan
By JIM CALLAHAN, Special to the Local News
President Barack Obama pushed his health care plan at Montgomery County’s Acadia University on Monday, but details of his plans were criticized by local opponents.Obama said Republicans ignored long-festering problems when they held power as he sought to build support for swift passage of legislation stalled in Congress.
However, Republican Congressman Jim Gerlach of West Pikeland said if the president had the votes to pass his legislation with the House Democratic majority, the vote would be scheduled.
The president said dismissively that Republican critics in Congress say they want to do something about rising health care costs, but said they did not when they held power.
"You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?” he said to applause from an audience at Arcadia.
Obama accused insurance companies of placing profits over people. "How much higher do premiums have to rise before we do something about it?” said Obama, making the first in an expected string of out-of-town trips to pitch his plan.
Gerlach, R-6th, of West Pikeland, sponsored a conference call to present opposition to the president’s plan.
Nancy Keefer, president and CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry, said the president said all the right things, but the proposal does not address overall cost increases to business, and does not include tort reform.
She agreed reforms are needed to control costs, but the latest plans do not give businesses a chance to review the proposal.
Dr. Robert Early of Reading Anesthesia Associates said as a doctor he was concerned about expanding government without providing guarantees of quality care.
He feared quality would be left behind by measures to increase access to care and contain costs.
At the same time he acknowledged doctors were split widely on the issue, and were not universally for the proposal or against it. He emphasized that political debate was outside any area of his medical expertise.
Gerlach said if the president had the 218-vote majority in the House of Representatives, the bill would already be passed. In addition to Republican reservations, some Democrats had them as well, he noted.
One area of Gerlach’s opposition to the president’s bill is his contention that it will result in a big government program and explosion of costs and federal debt.
Obama made his appeal as Democratic leaders in Congress worked on a rescue plan for sweeping changes in health care that seemed earlier in the year to be on the brink of passage. The two-step approach calls for the House to approve a Senate-passed bill despite opposition to several of its provisions, and both houses to follow immediately with a companion measure that makes a series of changes.
The White House has said it wants the legislation wrapped up by March 18, but that seems unlikely. The companion bill has not yet been made public, and a protracted debate is expected in the Senate, where Republicans vow to resist.
Obama’s stated goals across more than a year of struggle have been to extend coverage to millions who lack it, to ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, and to cut costs.
Republicans dismissed Obama’s argument instantly.
"The American people have heard all this rhetoric from the president before, and they continue to say loudly and clearly they do not want a massive government takeover of health care,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Obama has long identified the insurance industry as an obstacle to changes along the lines he seeks, but the administration’s actions and rhetoric seem to have escalated in recent days.
The president’s proposal would give the government the right to rein in excessive premium increases — a provision included after one firm announced a 39 percent increase in the price of individual policies sold in California. Separately, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, convened a White House meeting with insurance executives last week, and followed up with a letter released in advance of Obama’s speech.
It asked companies to "post on your Web sites the justification for any individual or small group rate increases you have implemented or proposed in 2010.”
One proposal Gerlach criticized would increase eligibility limits for low-income people. He said the federal government picks up half of those costs, but the states are required to pick up the other half, and state budgets around the nation are already stressed.
He maintained there was bipartisan support to require people with pre-existing conditions to qualify for insurance, to allow small business to purchase insurance pool plans together, and health and wellness incentives for employees.
Gerlach, Keefer and Early criticized the lack of tort reform in the measure to limit the costs of physican lawsuits.
Gerlach said Democrats consistently opposed liability limits.
Keefer said physicians needed more protection to practice medicine.
Early said doctors do not like to talk about it, but more tests are ordered than needed. While not an excuse for mistakes, Early said doctors are forced to practice unnecessary defensive medicine which in turn costs much more.
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