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Notice that Tim Johnson (IL) calls the Lewin Group "non-partisan." In an article on DU earlier today, it was made apparent that this group is in fact owned by a health insurer!
Rep. Johnson Commentary on Health Care
07/23/09
WASHINGTON, D.C. – America has the best health care system in the world, the best doctors and the most advanced resources. This system, and the astonishing advances in science that have driven it, have allowed us to live longer and better, and survive diseases and injuries that once routinely crippled and killed our citizens.
I intend to do all I can to preserve this model that is now being challenged by forces intent on unraveling it. With all the good this health system has accomplished, I recognize there are flaws. There are too many Americans without health insurance, too many citizens and small businesses that can’t afford it. The rising cost of care is beyond many family budgets. Emergency rooms are overburdened. Poor and uncoordinated decision-making in health care often drives up the costs for all of us.
There are solutions to those problems, which do not require scrapping the institutions we have created and starting over from ground zero.
What the leadership in Congress has offered to date is a catastrophically costly hoax on the American people. From the failure of HillaryCare in the 1990s to the upheaval of the Energy and Commerce Committee which saw statesman John Dingell replaced by the ultra-liberal Henry Waxman as chair, failed policies are being promoted that undercut our institutions and our value system. Health care is just the latest example.
For those able to examine the House Democratic Health Reform Bill, it is clear that it bears little resemblance even to the President’s often-repeated goals of not adding to the deficit, not increasing health-care costs, and not taking away people’s private health care coverage.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis shows this legislation will increase the deficit by approximately $239 billion over 10 years. That is on top of record annual deficits projected at $1.8 trillion for this year alone. These numbers are unfathomable to most Americans, including me, who as a member of congress, has routinely voted against the spending plans put forward by the House leadership. All of this profligate spending on the so-called stimulus and various bailouts plans has shot the federal debt level to an incomprehensible $11 trillion, and that could reach $19 trillion in the next 10 years.
Further, this plan would be paid for in part by $219 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, cuts largely derived by reducing reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. This could have a devastating effect of people being turned away, or care compromised, because of inadequate compensation, especially in rural areas like the 15th District where access to medical care is a pressing issue and doctors and nurses are already in scarce supply. They will be even scarcer if this plan survives.
Medicare and Medicaid are the very safety nets put in place, and rightly so, to care for our elderly and the poor. Millions have dutifully paid into these programs with trust they could rely on them in time of need. We are jeopardizing that trust with this proposal.
Other means of paying for this proposal would come from taxing health-care benefits citizens now enjoy, and from reducing the deductions people now get for their charitable donations. That can only translate into one thing – fewer donations to support your local United Way, humane society, church or YMCA.
There is an additional threat in this proposal to pro-life values many of us hold dear. White House Budget Director Peter Orzag said he was “not prepared to rule out” the possibility of requiring coverage of abortions in the mandated government-run insurance program. That means we would all pay for abortions. That is not choice.
Health care coverage under this bill would purportedly apply to 29 million people, not the 46 million uninsured. What is not clear is how many illegal immigrants this includes, or people who are already eligible for existing programs but have not availed themselves of that opportunity and are thus categorized as the “uninsured.” A Republican amendment in the House Ways and Means Committee would have required better screening of applicants for subsidized health care to ensure their citizenship. It was defeated, as were all other Republican amendments.
The consequences of this legislative proposal are far-reaching and stand to alter not only health-care delivery but our economy and the ideals of free enterprise and personal responsibility that undergird our value system.
The non-partisan Lewin Group estimated 114 million people would lose their current coverage under this bill.
The Council of Economic Advisors estimates 4.7 million jobs could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health care coverage.
The longer this debate continues, the more we learn about the disastrous possibilities under this plan. Longer waits, diminished care, rationed care to your children and mothers and fathers by faceless bureaucrats in a whopping 53 new offices, bureaus, commissions, and programs created by this takeover.
Perhaps that is why Democratic leaders want a vote now. Their own party is beginning to splinter under the weight of the evidence.
Regardless of how passionate one may feel about health care reform, it is more important to do it correctly than enact new laws, new taxes and new mammoth bureaucracies that will bury us.
Alternatives exist. They involve cutting regulations on competition within the insurance industry and relying on the power of the marketplace to compete for your insurance coverage, giving people more choice in insurance companies and giving them incentives to take care of themselves. Working models already exist that can be applied on a broader scale.
Costs can be reduced and access expanded by allowing small businesses to band together through associations to purchase health care at a lower cost for their employees and families. I am a sponsor of just such a piece of legislation.
Medicare fraud runs to an estimated $10 billion a year. We can attack that and streamline our existing safety nets to apply to the people who are truly eligible.
Government-run health care simply does not work. Countries that have tried it are failing to provide patients with quality, timely and affordable health care. Their attempts cannot be sustained by their budgets. Raising taxes while rationing health care is not a solution I will support.
There are many earnest and learned people in Congress and in the public who are eager to hammer out meaningful solutions. That’s what happens in a representative Democracy. That is not what is happening today in Washington, D.C.
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