As the summer recess wound to a close, U.S. Reps. Health Shuler, Mike McIntyre and Virginia Foxx talked about their problems with the health care reform bill currently in the U.S. House.
McIntyre, a Lumberton Democrat, told the Wilmington-Star News that he is concerned about the expense of the current house proposal as well as the public option insurance plan.
McIntyre pointed to recent projections that the United States will face a $9 trillion federal deficit during the next decade.
"And now, we’re looking at the possibility of a proposed new federal bureaucracy dumping another minimum one trillion more dollars on top of that," he said, referring to the estimate for the reform package over 10 years.
McIntyre also said funding is why he is uncertain about the much-debated public option for a new government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
"I’m not convinced yet that the public option is the way to go," he said. "The federal budget right now, we’re not in a position we can afford it."
Shuler, a Waynesville Democrat, took questions on a talk radio show. Shuler said health care reform must not add to the federal deficit, focus on wellness and prevention and must start with an overhaul before millions of uninsured Americans are put into the health care system, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.
More after the jump.
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Asked if health care is a right, Shuler replied, "To certain populations I think it’s a right, especially our children and our seniors. Our veterans is another (group) I’ll put in there."
One caller mentioned contributions Shuler has accepted from the health care industry – he raised $130,852 from health professionals, drugmakers, hospitals and other medical providers in 2008, according to Democracy North Carolina – but Shuler insisted that would not influence his vote.
"No one is purchasing my voting power," he said.
Foxx, a Banner Elk Republican, appeared at a home medical supply facility in Statesville, reports the Statesville Record & Landmark.
Christina Smith, a registered nurse, asked Foxx how she felt about legislation that would allow hospitals to decide how Medicare dollars are spent. Smith said the plan is called "bundling," and calls for hospitals to receive all the Medicare dollars for a specific patient and then divvy the limited amount of money between the hospital, physicians involved in the case and future care providers.
"Either the acute care or the post-acute care will suffer," Smith said.
"Washington should be operating on science and logic," Foxx answered. "But unfortunately, that's not how it works up there."
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Federal government is our worst enemy
FDR said "we have nothing to fear, but fear itself". My biggest fear is our federal government - with our federal government spending so much more money than they are taking in, and with this excessive spending continuing decade after decade, at some point our country is going to crumble due to all of this debt - and the Great Depression and current recession we are going through are going to look like a picnic compared to what this country will some day experience. So my major concern is no longer nuclear weapons, or terrorist, but my biggest fear is our federal politians and federal government who do not know how to control the huge amounts of money they are spending, nor do they have a plan for paying back all of this money they are spending.