Cheers, jeers pepper town-hall meeting on health care in Farrell

Photo

Jason Altmire

U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire told the 840 attendees he opposes a government takeover.

FARRELL, Pa. — Their issues ranged from how to help young people who don’t have health insurance to what will happen when people need end-of-life care.

Even if they didn’t get to ask a question of U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire of McCandless Township, D-4th, 840 people who showed up for his town-hall style meeting in Farrell High School auditorium Wednesday let their voices be heard.

There were boos and cheers and standing ovations. At times, they shouted one another down. They were, like others at similar meetings before them, “passionate” about the issue, said Altmire.

He said the meeting was simply to hear from as many people as possible on what he called “the most important domestic policy under debate right now.”

He made it clear to people that he voted against the bill when it appeared before the Education and Labor Committee at the end of July. The bill passed the committee anyway and is now before three other committees, he said. He expects it will come before the full House in October.

The bill, he told the crowd, doesn’t go far enough to keep insurance costs from rising. He didn’t like that it included a tax increase on the wealthy, and he didn’t like that it penalized small businesses with an 8 percent payroll tax for not offering health care to employees.

What he does want, he said, is to keep what works in what he called “the best health-care system anywhere.”

“We must do what we can to bring down the costs and to make it more affordable,” he said. “I want to have a reasonable approach to health-care reform.”

Altmire said he is against a government takeover of health care, but not against a public option for people who can’t or won’t get their benefits through their employers.

Connie Day of Wilmington started off two hours of questions and answers with what she said is “one of the scariest things people think — it will be like socialized medicine.”

Altmire said he doesn’t believe the final version of the bill will move toward it.

“There are a few people who would like to move toward public health care, but most are in the middle,” he said. “We want to fix what doesn’t work and keep what does.

He also said a public option could work — that he has “faith in employers” that they wouldn’t be encouraged to drop their health coverage for employees because a public option is available.

He said there is nothing in the bill that prevents employers from shifting responsibility of health care to the government.

He pointed out, though, that employers could simply drop coverage now anyway if they can’t afford it.

Altmire said that a public option could work if it is subject to the same regulations as the private companies and if it is 100 percent funded by beneficiaries. “It can’t be taxpayer-funded.”

He said he does believe, though, that the public has “a level of unease about it. “A public option might not make the final cut.”

Others were concerned about the 47 million people who at any given time, Altmire said, don’t have health-care coverage. Altmire said that within that group, there are many young, healthy people who are opting not to buy it.

“The goal is to find a way to include everybody,” he said. He said he believes in a reform that will squeeze costs out of the present system to make it more affordable for more people.

Altmire was careful also to point out what won’t be in the bill. There will be no death panels deciding if someone’s worth spending money on, he said. There is also no special deal for members of Congress, he said. They’ll be offered the same plan as all other federal employees, he said.