GOP’s health care bill
by Joe Wilson on August 18, 2009Congressman says protests are altering proposals
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson said protests at town hall meetings across the country have altered the shape health care legislation will take in Congress this fall, and he urged South Carolina residents to keep up the pressure.
“What we need for all of you to do is read … and call your neighbors,” the Republican said Monday in Columbia. “Contact family members in other states. You have changed the course of this bill already.”
In the first of a series of town halls scheduled in the state this week, Wilson told roughly 1,700 people who turned out at Keenan High School they may have turned back “big government’s” move into their health care.
“I was so happy to hear that as a result of your outcry, (the Obama administration) has removed the public option,” Wilson said to loud applause.
It is unclear whether Congress ultimately will pass the so-called public option portion of health care legislation, which supporters say will compete with private insurance companies to help lower skyrocketing premium and service costs.
Wilson touted the Republican alternative, H.R. 3400, over another House bill, H.R. 3200, which has raised the ire of some people at previously held town halls around the country.
Congress has not acted on any health care bill yet but is expected to take up several measures when members return to Washington after their summer break ends after Labor Day.
While there were a few instances of shouting back and forth between audience members, the meeting was calm.
“It’s not a bad bill,” one female attendee shouted to Wilson, favoring H.R. 3200. “I don’t have a problem with government (in my health care).”
Jim Hanks, a Lexington resident, brandished a sign reading “Get Government out of Medecine.” Hanks said he receives both Medicare and Social Security but wants the government to extend tax deductions to individuals for their health care coverage, as it does for businesses. He also said he wants medical schools to stop holding down enrollment for general practitioners.
“I’m not for abolishing anything right away,” said Hanks, who said he is a member of talk show host Glenn Beck’s “9-12” camp, which he described as a libertarian group that yearns for the kind of national unity that gripped the country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“I’m not for putting anybody on the streets,” Hanks said.
President Barack Obama is pushing an overhaul of health care as his main domestic policy agenda item. But the movement has sparked protests and charges of false information being spread to scuttle reform.
Peter Kremlick, 74, of Columbia, said he came to the town hall to urge Wilson to diversify his focus from health care reform to include other issues, such as gun control and illegal immigration.
“I’m concerned that while the right hand is working health care, the left hand is screwing in your pocket (to take away your other constitutional rights)” Kremlick said.
Kremlick said he, too, gets Medicare and Social Security but thinks uncovering fraud in Medicare would produce enough money to cover health care deficits.
John Black, a West Columbia physician and president of the S.C. Medical Association, said medical care is good in the United States, but “there are things wrong with it,” and “it’s not sustainable.”
Jameson Taylor, a policy researcher at the South Carolina Policy Council, drew opposition and applause from the audience by warning of the “rationing of health care” and of long “waiting periods” to get care.
Wilson said bipartisanship is the key to reforming health care.
“I give a speech every day on the floor (of Congress) about how Democrats and Republicans should be working together to reform health care,” Wilson said.
Roddie Burrris
The State
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