Our Republican Congressman Peter Roskam appeared on WLS AM’s Roe Conn show this afternoon continuing his aggressive campaign to block any meaningful healthcare reform legislation. Here’s the audio:
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Roskam is obviously pretty pleased with himself about his little theatrical performance with the handcuffs on the House floor the other day. Its a shame we have a Congressman who constantly resorts to stunts and party talking points to scare his constituents rather than engage in serious efforts to resolve the issues that are making their lives difficult. If Roskam gets his way on healthcare, it won’t be long until members of Congress are the only Americans who will be able to afford adequate care.
Roskam’s latest scare tactic is to talk about the individual mandate provision in the House bill that was passed on Saturday. The Republican party has decided that scaring the public about individual mandates to purchase healthcare insurance is the best means they have to kill health reform and Old Rubber Stamp has been quick to take that message on the road. It wasn’t too long ago though that Republican leaders were talking about individual mandates as being a good thing – ensuring individual responsibility. Watch Republican Senator Charles Grassley extol the virtues of individual mandates on Fox News:
Individual mandates are a good thing because, without them, the cost of caring for people without insurance in emergency rooms raises the cost of health insurance for the rest of us – maybe as much as $1800 per year. People who can afford to obtain health insurance must do so as a matter of responsibility. Grassley says: “I believe there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.”
And listen to these guys talk about mandates – 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Grassley again, Republican Senator Bob Bennett, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, and former Republican Senate Majority leader Bill Frist:
But now Senators Grassley and Snowe and the rest of the party are opposing mandates. Grassley is questioning their constitutionality. Roskam is pulling out his handcuffs. What happened?
Well a couple of things, I think. As I have already suggested, the Republican Party has determined that this is the best strategy to kill health reform and cause the Democrats in Congress and the President to fail, and that is what they want more than anything else, even if it means the American people continue to suffer due to unmanageable healthcare expenses and lack of access to care. I think the other thing that’s operating here is the Democratic bill’s inclusion of effective insurance regulatory reform. Republicans would probably be very happy with mandates in a reform bill, if it didn’t come from the Democrats, and if it included massive insurance de-regulation as the present, Republican alternative bill does, without any public option to compete with private insurers. The health insurance industry supported mandates and have donated heavily to Republicans to get them included in any reform plan. But the public option was a buzzkill and so Republicans have reversed and are now attacking mandates.
The health insurance industry is isn’t anything like the bogeyman that some on the left portray it it to be. It’s like any industry looking after its stockholders first and foremost, but trying to be competitive by offering a high-quality high-value product that consumers and employers will want to buy. The companies are staffed by honorable people who subscribe to the same plans that they sell. Most of the horror stories in the media involve gross distortions of insurers role in medical decision making and the size of the profit margins that companies earn on their products.
Because health insurers have built-in incentives to control medical cost while maintaining quality of care, I believe it is possible, and perhaps desirable, to build an effective universal coverage plan based the private sector. But such a plan can only succeed in providing affordable universal coverage if there are effective individual and employer mandates, strong industry regulation, and a public option to fill in the gaps. Far from destroying, the private sector, CBO estimates that millions more Americans will obtain private coverage under the Democratic plan. And Roskam’s lies to the contrary, this plan does not involve the government taking control over 1/6 of the economy. Nothing changes hands. There is no nationalization of physician practices or hospitals or insurance companies. All that stays as it is now, in the private sector. This is not communism no matter what the teabaggers signs may say.
If the Republicans reject the individual mandate, there is still another option – single payer. But of course they reject that as well. They want only for reform to fail.
Rather than work seriously toward and effective solution to the nation’s healthcare crisis, Roskam and his Republican colleagues have offered a phony reform plan based in medical malpractice caps and insurance de-regulation that will do nothing to increase the proportion of Americans with health coverage based on CBO analysis. And if you like what Republican de-regulation has done for the banking industry, you’ll love what it does for healthcare.
One more point of correction for Peter Roskam on his statements on the radio today – Senator Lieberman has no conscience.
But I digress.
