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Rep. Tom Petri expressed reservations Wednesday as the House Education and Labor Committee began work on America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, H.R. 3200, the Democrats' plan to overhaul the nation's health insurance system.
During an opening statement at a committee meeting held to begin consideration of the bill, Petri stressed the importance of proceeding with health care reform. However, he noted, spending on health care services accounts for 17 percent of gross domestic product. With an industry which will spend $2.6 trillion in 2009, he said "We are taking a big risk if we rush through this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I think we need a 'second opinion.'"
Petri urged his colleagues to produce a bill which gives everyone access to quality and affordable health care. He said that reform should allow patients in consultation with their doctors to be in control of their health care decisions rather than have those decisions made by bureaucrats. He said that any reform should aim to reduce the cost of health care and limit health care inflation.
"I am very concerned that the bill before us today does little to achieve any of the above principles and instead will put health decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats, impose costly new taxes on businesses and individuals, and do little to reform the fundamental problems in the system that currently drive health care costs," Petri said.
"Government-mandated changes in health care will have enormous consequences for our economy and for the way we live here in the United States," he said, and urged his colleagues to craft comprehensive reform in a "bipartisan and thoughtful manner" which, he said, should not be rushed.
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