Republican tactics on health-care reform don’t inspire confidence

Opinion: February 4, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

In his Jan. 21 impassioned plea for health-care reform, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson sounds noble, but what he said is wrong for us. My problem with believing his statement that the health-care bill kills jobs is that it hasn’t been backed it up with evidence. The problem with the evidence Johnson cites is that it did not come from the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan body. We are to take rhetoric as the gospel. Personally, I stopped believing in the tooth fairy long ago.

Ohio’s unemployment rate is coming down; it’s still high, but coming down. I believe the plan we presently have makes a start. Many of the protections for patients and a government option were not included, and I feel we will regret that later. I watched for over a year the ugly sausage making of this bill, now law. From the committee hearings held late at night, to the ugly and sometimes violent town hall meetings held all over this country.

What Johnson proposes now sounds like sour grapes. Members of his party added over 135 amendments to this Affordable Care Act, many of which were accepted by the majority. What made my heart sink and sometimes made me angry was that Republicans would turn around and vote down the very amendments they proposed. The Republicans weren’t serious and did not want to participate in making good law for the American people. Now Johnson wants a “do-over.”

Do we really have time for this? There are countries beginning to eat our lunch in the global markets. We’re falling steadily in education, our next big problem. It’s predicted that cities and states will default at an alarming rate in 2011.

It seems to me, a more rational approach would be to amend the Affordable Care Act. It just seems more rational and less inflammatory than repealing what has already gone into effect.

Johnson wrote that two-thirds of doctors feel the ACA will mean less quality care. I hope he’s wrong, because there are incentives placed in this law for doctors and hospitals that provide good quality care. Personally, I don’t believe it is in the interest of doctors and hospitals to provide less than high quality care for their patients, incentive or not. I do think doctors have been waiting for Congress to come up with a “doctor fix.”

Lastly, I am disappointed by Johnson’s misguided attempt to deceive his senior constituents by telling them Medicare Advantage is being slashed without telling them the whole truth. Health insurance companies promised us, the taxpayers, that they could keep costs low if they were allowed to handle some part of Medicare. So we, the taxpayer or federal government, gave insurance companies a 16 percent subsidy and let them sell Medicare Advantage to seniors. Well the private sector insurance companies did a bad job. Costs increased to the taxpayers.

So now, we the taxpayers, are telling insurance companies that because they didn’t hold up their end, we are going to by-pass the insurance middleman and provide directly for patients. While I may not have explained it completely, I believe I’m pretty close. Seniors are not in danger of losing benefits, but some politicians love to spread fear.

Lee Rogers, Columbiana