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8/21/2009 |
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U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss visits Chamber |
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U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said Wednesday that a health care reform plan under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives would be devastating to small business owners and manufacturers.
Chambliss spoke about health care reform to more than 50 people at the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce. Most in the chamber boardroom were small business owners and manufacturers with an interest in continuing to provide health insurance plans for their employees.
The House plan would “stifle growth and expansion,” Chambliss said. He said he opposes a “government option” in the plan that would let the federal government compete with private insurers leaves “no incentive for businesses to provide (health care) coverage.”
Yet health care coverage is not government’s job, he said. “To think we can do it better than the private sector, … we just can’t do it.”
Chambliss said he supports a Senate alternative, the Burr-Coburn bill that promotes tax credits to fund health care insurance. “We can cover all uninsured Americans with a tax credit,” he said.
If everyone was insured, the overall cost of health care would decrease, Chambliss said.
He said he favors health care reform but would only support a plan that doesn’t interrupt the relationship between doctor and patient, that covers pre-existing conditions and that allows insurance to be purchased across state lines. “We need to let the free market work,” he said.
Chambliss also said if people are happy with their current coverage, they “ought to be able to keep it.”
He said 88 percent of Americans have health insurance, and that the uninsured include nearly 30 million people who have opted not to have insurance or haven’t taken the initiative to get coverage.
Local medical officials also spoke to the group about health care reform.
“It’s really a cost crisis, not an access crisis,” Kurt Stuenkel, chief executive officer of Floyd Medical Center, said. Chambliss said he agreed on that point.
Dr. Kenneth Davis, president and chief executive officer of Harbin Clinic, told the group, “Something in this system is broken and needs to be fixed.” He said the current system is fragmented and any reform should align incentives among hospitals and physicians.
Carlton Ulmer, chief operations officer of Redmond Regional Medical Center, said he receives many calls from people asking, “how do I get a better voice” in the health care debate. He tells them to contact their congressional representatives. He also said the push to pass a health care bill needs to be slowed down.
“As we implement something, we need to do it incrementally.”
-Rome News Tribune
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