Update on the Health Care Debate in Washington, D.C.
Congressman Greg Walden
Tuesday March 2, 2010
 
Last week President Obama and leaders from both sides of the aisle in Congress convened at the Blair House (across the street from the White House) for a summit on health care. For those who tuned in, you probably came away with a pretty good idea of where both parties stand on the issue.

Both sides believe in reforming the health care system, but disagree on the best approach. The physicians in attendance — Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La, heart surgeon), Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla, obstetrics), and Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyom, orthopedics) — along with others made a strong case for starting over and working on a bipartisan solution together.

Real bipartisanship starts with a blank sheet of paper and a common goal with the foucs on building agreement.

Unfortunately, what was actually debated on Thursday was written by a select group of people behind closed doors before the summit. I am very concerned that the bill discussed at the summit won’t lower costs, cuts Medicare and will put new, unfunded burdens on states.

In meetings with employers throughout our district over the last few weeks they express the need for reform, but are deeply concerned that the new mandates and taxes will cause even more loss of jobs. If you apply the White House’s own economic formulas to this measure, the result is a loss of five million jobs.

I support common-sense proposals that allow the purchase of insurance across state lines to improve competition, create a risk pool to help people with pre-existing conditions afford coverage, and curb junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that drive up costs for all of us:

Create a risk pool to help people with pre-existing conditions afford coverage
Make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, and set up a new Universal Access Program so patients with preexisting conditions have access to affordable health care coverage. We need to make health insurance more portable.

Allow the purchase of insurance across state lines to improve competition
Give small businesses the power to pool together and offer health care at lower prices, just as corporations and labor unions do. The Bend Chamber of Commerce is showing just how important this is.

A couple of years back, they asked for my support in convincing the Department of Labor to allow them to offer health insurance plans to its members — that’s roughly 1,300 businesses and their 27,000 employees. After nearly six years of work, the federal government finally gave the Chamber approval. It’s the first plan of its kind in the state, and as a small business owner of more than 21 years who always paid for health insurance for the people we worked with, I would have loved to have this option to group up with other small businesses and reduce costs.

The result is that some employers may save up to about 20 percent on their costs, enough to hire or retain an employee or two. It all adds up to job creation, better healthcare coverage, and lower costs, all without a federal government takeover.

Curb lawsuits against doctors and hospitals
End costly junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine by enacting medical liability reforms modeled after the successful state laws of California and Texas. This alone would save $54 billion.

Lower health care premiums
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the alternative plan I support would reduce health insurance premiums by up to 10 percent for employees who get coverage through a small business (50 or fewer employees), 8 percent for those who do not have access to employer-provided coverage, and 3 percent for employees who get coverage through a large business.

No tax increases and no increase in the deficits
These solutions would reduce the deficit by $68 billion over ten years without tax increases.

Now it seems likely that Speaker Pelosi will ram through the Senate bill and then pass other legislation to amend that bill. This is an end-around the normal legislative process as the jam this measure through Congress. With a huge majority in the House she has the power to take this action, but when you’re affecting one-sixth of the country’s economy and everyone’s health insurance, it will certainly offend many Americans.

I’m curious to hear what you think about the summit and the prospect of this bill becoming law. Tell me what you think by clicking here.

More than health care reform was on the minds of nearly 400 people at the annual meeting of the Mid Oregon Credit Union Saturday morning in Bend where I delivered the keynote address and spent time listening to those in attendance and answering their questions. Concerns also focused on the lack of credit available to small businesses (a topic I heard more about during a lunch with central Oregon business leaders), the whopping federal deficit and efforts to improve forest health and create jobs.

Similar issues came up later in the day at a meeting in Madras. School officials were curious about reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law and what the Obama Administration has planned on that front. My own view is more local decision-making authority is best for our schools to meet the needs of the students in their communities.

We also talked about continuing collaborative efforts to deal with reintroduction of hatchery steelhead and conservation of water.

Here’s an item you may not have heard much about last week — an attempt to turn our intelligence officers into criminals for playing on the phobias of terrorist detainees. Yes, you read that correctly. Now this new provision would not apply to prosecutors or cops, but would apply to those trying to get information to prevent a terrorist attack.

And if somehow these same intelligence officers violated the “religious beliefs” of a terrorist detainee, they could get charged with a criminal offense. How would this work? Can you imagine the lawsuits?

Probably even more offensive is that this amendment was slipped into the Intelligence Authorization bill without any hearing and without consultation with the intelligence community and without the knowledge of Republicans on the committee.

Once the bill came to the Floor of the House and we had time to read it, we discovered this new criminal penalty and exposed it. The ensuing firestorm caused the bill to go back to committee and part of the language was removed. However, the overall Intelligence Authorization is outdated and may even get vetoed by the President.

Once again, none of this would have happened if the House operated in a transparent way. This provision was never debated in any committee, never proposed to the minority party, and never offered to the intelligence agencies for consultation on the provision.

This isn’t the kind of transparency the American people expect from their government, and it’s exactly why I’m working on bipartisan legislation to reform Congress to make it more accountable to the taxpayers.

In my new leadership role in the House, I’m tasked with developing real reforms to make the process more open, accountable and transparent. I’d welcome your suggestions on how to improve “the people’s House.”

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