By Hugh Hewitt
Washington Examiner columnist
August 3, 2009
Members of the House are back in their districts, and senators will join them in their states after next week. If they are doing their jobs – a big if – they will be meeting with constituents over the next month, and this is your chance to impact the debate on the radical proposals to restructure American medicine.
These proposals are now making their way towards a final debate and vote in the fall. Here are 10 questions for any meeting you might have or e-mail you might send. (And 10 answers any honest representative or senator would give you.)
1. Do you guarantee that I get to keep the plan I have and the doctor I have? (“I know you have heard the president say this repeatedly, but expert after expert has confirmed this is simply not true. Employers pick health plans, not employees, and if the new law puts forward a cheap ‘government option/public plan,’ employers will dump employees into it and pocket the savings as smart business people will do when given such a choice.”)
2. Will the law require Members of Congress and federal employees to be enrolled in the “government option/public plan,” and if not, why not? (“No, it won’t. Of course not. Because the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) is a gold-plated, great plan that Congress will never give up for the cost-driven, tin-plated “government option/public plan.”)
3. Will seniors be guaranteed joint replacements, stents, and the chemotherapy they need, or will they be forced to accept less-costly and less-effective alternatives? (“Of course they aren’t going to get the best, most expensive treatments. Medicare is already nearly broke and the only way we can pay for it and the massive expansion of it to the uninsured is to ration care and take away the expensive treatment options.”)
Column continues with questions 4 through 10 at Recess questions for Congress
