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ROSS HOLDS HEALTH CARE DISCUSSION AT JRMC

By Wes Clement/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday, August 7, 2009 10:32 PM CDT

U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (D-Prescott) listened to community thoughts of the federal legislature’s evolving health care bill Friday.

Dr. Omar Atiq (right), chief of staff at Jefferson Regional Medical Center, addresses U.S. Rep. Mike Ross about the costs incurred by the hospital with Medicare Friday morning during a regional round table discussion and listening session on the topic of health care at JRMC. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald

The 11 a.m. meeting at Jefferson Regional Medical Center was announced at short notice and few members of the general public were present aside from a good showing of JRMC doctors and a round table of health care administrators, doctors, local business owners and business representatives.

“I know a lot of people get worked up and angry about the notion of single payer or universal or nationalized health care, and so do I,” Ross said. “I’m opposed to any of those types of health care reforms, but the reality is half of the people in America already have national health care. It’s called Medicare, Medicaid, ARKids First, veterans health care and military retiree health care.

“When you combine those health care programs that already exist with Social Security, it consumes 40 cents out of every tax dollar, and if we do nothing to contain the costs and if health care costs continue to grow at twice the rate of inflation, that’s going to reach 100 percent of all federal revenues by 2040.”

There were no outbursts at the meeting as there have been at similar gatherings around the nation recently.

“There are some things that have come up that bother me,” JRMC Chief of Staff Dr. Omar Atiq said. He referenced Ross’ statement of rapidly growing costs of existing government health care programs.

“Wouldn’t it seem more appropriate to take care of the inefficiencies of this huge (existing) system first?

Mac Bellingrath of Automatic Vending of Arkansas said the people he deals within the insurance business are “good honest folks trying to do a service.”

“Being in the vending business, I am used to being vilified, and I think the insurance industry is being vilified,” Bellingrath said.

“I believe that the efficiencies in their industry are better than the efficiencies in government,” he said. “FedEx and UPS made mince meat out of the U.S. Post Office. That’s a good example of comparing government efficiencies to private enterprise efficiencies.”

Ross was asked directly a few times after the meeting if he would choose the government plan if Congress is eligible. He ultimately said the good thing about the way it would work is that people would be able to analyze their options and choose whether they would prefer one or the other. There is free choice, he said.

He said if Congress were to go onto the would-be government health care plan rather than the plan it is now on, he would have great confidence in the coverage and system. He also brought up the point that whether the outcome of the reform will entail a new government health care insurance coverage system is yet to be seen.

He was asked if he thought, due to the complexity and huge impact of the health care situation, that legislators should take a significantly longer period than a few months to address the task of finding a solution rather than voting on a bill a short time from now.

Ross said he was in favor of taking the time that is needed to address the issue thoroughly and that he and other conservative democrats worked to slow down action on the bill to allow legislators a chance to meet with constituents.

“As many of you know there is a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds,” Ross said, “not because somebody went on a spending spree with their credit card, but because someone in their family got sick.”

“While we must reform the system to help the more than 300,000 Arkansans without health insurance, I firmly believe we must also reform our health care system to ensure that those who have health insurance coverage and like what they have, will be able to keep it and will be able to keep choosing their own doctors,” Ross said.

“Health insurance premiums rise four times faster than wages,” he said. “More and more people are losing their coverage.”

The discussion was the 36th such meeting held by Ross during the past several months.

He said he will hold his 37th town hall meeting on health care at Henderson State University’s Arkansas Hall Friday at 2 p.m. for all in the district wishing to attend.

For more details on Ross’ upcoming telephone public opinion meetings, refer to http://ross.house.gov/index.html.

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