It was interesting listening to Rep Lewis defend the big insurance companies, of which he was formerly employed and from which he recieves vast amounts of campaign contributiions. Defending them over the right of the people to have affordable, quality health care.
Lewis admitted that there were problems with the Health Care industry (insurance denied for pre-existing conditions, cancelled because their policy was not portable, or who have seen how the lack of tort reform raised medical costs). His solution was to give tax incentives, pay off the very companies that have so wronged the American public for so long, pay them off so that they will do what they should have been doing all along. It was outrageous.
The real telling point of the night was the last question. The moderator said that it would be fitting to give one question to the man who had been disruptive. You know him, the guy Lewis twice shouted “Shut Up” to. He asked, if the Republicans had control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency for the last eight years, how come they had not done anything to fix the health care problems Lewis had previously admitted to. Lewis could only say that improvements take a long time to enact. Maybe the Republicans can’t improve our health Care system in eight years, but look what the Democrats and President Obama have done in less than 8 months.
They are on the verge of enacting sweeping changes to improve Medicare and Medicaid, reign in the cost of health insurance, insuring the uninsured, eliminating the pharmaceutical “donut hole” that penalizes senior citizens, eliminating the penalties for pre-existing conditions, exclusions when patients become seriously ill, limiting out-of-pocket patient expenses, giving tax breaks for small businesses, and improving medical training programs; all the while allowing states to offer their own insurance exchanges and each one of us to keep our own insurance policy if we are satisfied with it.
Jerry Lewis and the Republicans had their chance to reign in the insurance companies, but they failed. They failed to stand up to the big insurance companies. They failed to stand up for the rights of the people to have affordable, quality Health Care.
It is time that Lewis steps aside and lets someone work who will truly represent the will and the needs of the great people of the 41st Congressional District.
Pat Meagher
Forest Falls
Democratic Candidate for the US Congress from the 41st District
The night was filled with many factual inaccuracies. Lewis:
- incorrectly said that America has the best health care system in the world, when the World Health Organization ranks us 37th.
- incorrectly asserted that older Americans and the mentally disabled would be denied health coverage when the plan does nothing of the kind.
- incorrectly said that the new plan would cause rationing of services, when the plan specifically works to prevent just that from occurring.
- incorrectly stated that the reforms would balloon the deficit when the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the current plan would not increase the deficit.
- incorrectly identified who the uninsured are, when the reality is that the vast majority of the uninsured are the working poor who don’t qualify for Medicaid, but can’t afford insurance on their own. Their choice is whether to eat and have a roof over their heads or get overpriced health insurance.
More about the uninsured:
Even if Lewis is right in believing that all the illegal immigrants were counted in the 47 million
uninsured in this country, that’s only 12 million. That leaves 35 million working class
Americans who can not afford even the Medicaid co-pay.
A partial list of Lewis’s campaign contributors includes:
- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Southern California
- Pacific Life Insurance Company
- Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers
- National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors
- American Health Care Association
- Health Net
- Healthcare Distribution Management Association
- National Community Pharmacists Association
- Physician Hospitals of America
- SmithKline Beecham Corp
- West Los Angeles Health
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