Reply to my Congressman

I received a response from my Congressional representative the other day and decided to reply. Below is his letter and below that is my response.  Some of you (perhaps many or all) will disagree with my reply.  That's fine.  If there are particular points you'd like to address, please feel free to comment.  Perhaps this might serve as grist for a constructive conversation.

JimN

October 11, 2013     Rev. James E. Norton 13 Fairway Lane Fairmont, WV 26554-2012   Dear Rev. Norton:   Thank you for contacting me about the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.   The health and safety of West Virginians is a priority of mine. However, the President’s health care plan is a bad policy that increases health care costs, explodes the deficit and hurts small businesses.   As implementation of the health care law continues, the American people have started to see more problems and failings associate with it. The pre-existing conditions program has already been halted by the Obama administration because it ran out of funds 8 months early. The Obama administration has also delayed a number of provisions including a delay on the employer mandate for a year.   Obamacare will cost America $1.76 trillion over its first 10 years and add 17 new taxes or penalties. Insurance premiums, which according to the President were going to be reduced by up to $2,500 per year, will increase for new participants by as much as 413%. Small business owners and individuals have raised numerous concerns about the costs of premiums, the ability to keep the same coverage, and the 127 million hours per year that business owners, families, and health care providers will now spend strictly on compliance paperwork.   Under the law, tens of millions of Americans are at risk of losing their coverage, and employers have already been reported as shifting workers to part-time or 29 hours to avoid Obamacare rules. All Americans should have the right to make their own health care choices. Restricting choice and punishing individuals and employers is the wrong way to reform health care.   The goal is to replace Obamacare with common sense solutions focused on affordability first, not a Washington run, top-down approach. Reforms such as purchasing insurance options across state lines, making health care portable between jobs, creation of state-based risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions, and medical liability reform will help bring down cost and expand access to care without a top-down system.   Again, thank you for contacting my office.  If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my office.  Regarding issues before Congress, please contact my Washington, D.C. office by phone at (202) 225-4172; for constituent services, my Morgantown office at (304) 284-8506.  I also encourage you to visit my website at www.mckinley.house.gov, where you can send me an email and sign up for my email newsletter.     Sincerely,       David B. McKinley, P.E. Member of Congress

October 14, 2013

 

Congressman David B. McKinley, P.E.

House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.

 Dear Representative McKinley,

 Thank you for your response to my inquiry about the current crisis and failure of responsible reasoning in Congress.  Your observations suggest the impasse is over the Affordable Health Care Act, which became law three years ago and, for the most part, was upheld by the Supreme Court.  Even though the law is patterned after a similar program developed in Massachusetts at the initiation of a Republican governor, a state program that has reduced health care costs over-all, Republicans in Congress at the behest of certain business tycoons and political extremists are attempting to squash it.  Strangely, the law complies with sound market-driven measures that Republicans historically have endorsed, One has to wonder what really is going on here.

Your letter reiterates the same "old" talking points that keep getting hammered in some sort of propaganda campaign, most of which have been disproved, even by your own Congressional Budget Office. Already, the AHA is accomplishing worthy reforms in the overpriced, under-performing health care system.  These gains are being accomplished by market-incentives, encouraging fewer hospital stays, fewer ER visits, and unnecessary costly procedures.  Now when I visit my doctor, he is able with a few key-strokes on his lap-top to gain access to my entire medical history, and that makes him even more proficient than he always has been in providing for my care.  The AHA is promoting precisely that kind of advancement.  The removal of life-time limits and pre-conditions clauses has even now saved many families from economic ruin.

Obviously, such a massive new approach is going to encounter glitches.  Those unforeseen delays in registering new health insurance applications helps explain how widely popular the new program is and its public demand.  To use such to-be-expected "hiccups" as justification for gutting the program is deceptive representation, to say the least.

The sad reality is that in America we pay more for medical care than any other developed countries, but the health of American citizens is far from mirroring the measure of resources we pour into health care.  Where is the money going? Could it be the pockets of inordinately paid upper-level hospital and drug company executives?  The AHA is, once again, demonstrating a reasonable approach to payment for services, which probably will have long-term consequences for those who have been riding the medical and health insurance gravy train.  My opinion here does not include actual medical practitioners.  I have been blessed with exceptional doctors and other health care providers, and I have only the highest praise and respect for their commitment and care.  The problem, it seems to me, has to do with those who run medical institutions and drug companies and "make a killing" in the health market.  The AHA will impose restrictions on their ability to do so.

You argue that the AHA is a government, top-down approach.  I disagree.  It is a market-driven enterprise connected to quality care and successful outcomes: fewer hospitalizations due to pro-active intervention, working more closely with patients to ensure healthier outcomes, and in the long-run leading to a healthier country.

Certainly you ran for office out of a deep desire to "promote the general welfare," and as a Republican your aim is to conserve those values that reflect a humane American spirit. Given the attributes that have already come into play because of the AHA, I cannot help but wonder why the intense hostility toward it.  The changes in health care you espouse are already a part of the AHA.  Is the problem that while the original program in Massachusetts was Republican in origin, the present national program was Democratic led.  Are we dealing with political spite here?  Representative McKinley, please give serious reconsideration to ending the destructive shut-down, raising the debt-ceiling, and stopping the craziness over Obamacare.

Sincerely,

James E. Norton