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Like you, my health and the health of my loved ones is very important to me. We want to have access to the best care possible, which means being treated by the best doctors, being able to get the best treatments and not having it cost an arm and a leg.
However, there is no question that under our current system, too many Americans are facing financial hardship to afford health care for themselves and their families.
Others simply cannot afford insurance, and are having to go completely without.
It is essential that we make reforms that will bring the price of health care down, making it available to every American, while preserving the opportunity for those who like their current coverage to keep it. A plan that pushes people into a one size fits all government-run program will not work.
In recent weeks, Democrats have been publicizing their long-awaited health care reform legislation, and it turns out there’s not much positive reform to it after all. In fact, as estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the total cost of the bill will be more than $1.28 trillion. But that’s not all. The bill will also increase taxes by $818 billion and add $239 billion to the deficit, all the while leading to higher private health care costs.
Squeezing seniors by reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments and adding new taxes on small business will not pay for the massive burden this plan would put on American families. Congressional Democrats and the Administration recently came to an agreement that would create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC), an unelected board that could deny physician recommended treatment for seniors because they determined it was too expensive. Far from saving you money, IMAC could force providers to shift greater costs onto private health consumers by reimbursing them at below cost.
In addition to the monstrous cost of expanding Medicaid and creating a new government program, using Medicare as a model for House Democrats’ plan will drive doctors out of the profession and some hospitals out of business, eventually resulting in fewer options for patients and longer waits for care. Those that choose to weather the storm will be forced to resort to more extreme cost shifting to stay afloat.
The public plan created by House Democrats’ would also be sure to force many people, who would otherwise have kept their current coverage, onto the government’s rolls. Independent analyses of the bill have shown that at anywhere from 20 to 100 million people would be “crowded out” of the plan they currently have. This is because, as we have seen with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, once the federal government backs something, a level playing field is prohibited; the public plan now being discussed would have the full backing of the government, ensuring that it will not play by the same rules as private insurers must. A public plan, by its nature, will destroy the very thing that could provide access to quality health care for every American: competition.
This nation was founded on a free market system, and has experienced its greatest successes as a result of that system. We must get bad government regulation, and the vast bureaucratic claims process created by it, out of the way to empower consumers just as we do in nearly every other market. The government already owns a major bank and auto company, should we really be handing over the medical industry as well?
When considering this government-centered option, I asked myself, “would I rather pay the costs I pay today for the quality of care I currently receive, or would I rather pay less but potentially have to wait weeks and months for the tests and treatments I need, if I am permitted to get them at all?” I decided that I could not stand for a system that would deny me the ability to take care of my family the best that I could.
By spending so much and accomplishing so little, these proposals demonstrate that a government takeover of health care is the wrong decision for patients. In fact, the government should never make the kinds of decisions that only doctors and their patients can make.
The South Carolina Medical Association also supports the strengthening of the doctor/patient relationship, and has recently submitted a letter along with a coalition of several state and specialty medical societies outlining the principles that they believe are essential to a patient-centered health care system. These include, but are not limited to, the importance of allowing every person in the US the ability to choose his or her health insurance plan and physician. They also make it clear that they are “adamantly opposed” to provisions in this bill that would undermine these goals: the creation of a new public insurance plan and a new mandate on individual and employers to have health insurance.
Republicans feel that nothing should come between you and your doctor, and that in order to fix the health care system, we must free it from unnecessary intrusion by the government. Unfortunately, Democrats in the Energy & Commerce Committee have already defeated a Republican amendment that would have prohibited any federal employee or political appointee from dictating how a medical provider practices medicine.
We don’t need Washington bureaucrats rationing care and telling people what health care services they can and can’t have. Republicans have a better plan that will expand access to affordable health care and give you, as Americans, the best choices of health plans and doctors that will let you make your own decisions on what best works for you.
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