Washington, D.C.--Speaking to the Riverdale Senior Services and at the Riverdale Y, Congressman Eliot Engel said that much of the information about the proposed health care legislation was misleading and some of it outright wrong.

He said that the so-called ‘death committees’ were a complete fiction as was not being able to choose your own doctor. “If you like your doctor and are satisfied with your insurance plan,” he said, “you can keep them. This legislation is designed to add to the system, not replace it. In fact, the plan is endorsed by the American Medical Association.”

He said the plan was not a takeover by government and that studies by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office showed that by 2019 only 3 percent of the population would choose a public option plan while the number of employer health care plans would increase. Also, the infamous ‘donut hole’ in the Medicare prescription drug program will eventually be eliminated.

Rep. Engel, a senior member on the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, told the meetings on Wednesday (8/12) that the legislation would:

• End discrimination for pre-existing conditions.
• End exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays.
• Have insurance companies fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
• End dropping of coverage for serious illnesses.
• Require insurance companies to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full.

Much of the misinformation, he said, is spread deliberately by those with a vested interest in the current, dysfunctional, system. “Since 2002, the average premium paid to large U.S. health insurance companies rose 87 percent while insurance company profits in the same time rose 428 percent,” he said.