ARTICLE: Fleming voice concerns about health care (Shreveport Times)
Washington,
Apr 2 -
Congressman John Fleming visited The Oaks of Louisiana retirement community Thursday voicing his concerns to senior citizens about the negative effects of the health care reform bill.
Fleming said the health care bill is more about control rather than providing quality health care to all Americans.
"We have what I would say is a government that wants to take control of private business, just like we see in Western European Socialist countries," Fleming said.
Using the federal post office as an example, he said the American government doesn't have an impressive past record of running businesses.
"Anything the government runs, it tends to run poorly," Fleming said. "It's not that we have a poor government; it's just the government of bureaucrats are really not trained, and they don't have the mind frame for the innovation skills or certainly the profit motive to do what the private sector can do."
Fleming's visit came the same day as President Obama, speaking in Portland, Maine, urged Americans not to judge the nearly $1 trillion legislation he signed into law last week until the reforms take hold.
The president's overhaul extends health coverage to 32 million people who are uninsured and will shape how almost every American receives and pays for medical treatment. Some aspects of the plan go into effect this year, but president has said it could take four years for the full overhaul to take hold.
Some seniors aren't celebrating the president's health care overhaul. While Democrats hail the sweeping legislation as the greatest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, they also fear that seniors won't see it that way for this fall's elections. Republicans have portrayed the overhaul as a raid on Medicare — a bedrock of retirement security — to provide money to pay for covering younger, uninsured workers and their families.
An Associated Press-GfK survey in March found that 54 percent of seniors opposed the legislation that was then taking final shape in Congress, compared with 36 percent of people age 18-50. And last week a USA Today/Gallup Poll found that a majority of seniors said passing the bill was a bad thing — while younger people were positive about it.
Fleming expressed his fear of assigning life quality to patients, which could affect the availability and quality of treatment.
"We'll see bureaucrats come between you and your doctor," he said.
Although Fleming supports aspects of health care reform such as doing away with preexisting conditions, allowing children to remain on their parent's health care plans until the age of 26 and eventually covering more people, he advocates a more gradual process of implementation.
"There are good things in (the bill), but there's so many bad things that it's just not enough to compensate," Fleming said. "We would like to implement step-wise reforms — one bill at a time that addresses each of the problems."
In addition, Fleming stressed it was important to make sure the elected officials who are representing Louisiana citizens are actually standing up for what the people want.
"You can't change minds in Washington; you can only change people," Fleming said. "We need to hold our representatives and senators accountable for their decisions."
Congressional Republicans were united against the law and many predict that Democrats who voted for it will be dragged down in the November elections. Some Republicans are calling for repeal, and Obama said they should "go for it" but also be prepared to explain why they want to take away tax credits, a ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and other popular elements of the new law.
"If they want to have a fight, I welcome that fight. Because I don't believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat," he said.
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100402/NEWS01/4020327/Fleming-voice-concerns-about-health-care
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