Lee addresses members of the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce. Photo by Mark Gillespie.
U.S. Congressman Chris Lee wants his constituents to know he’s read the 1,100 pages of the current health care reform bill — and his objections to it are based on research and business experience.
“One thing I have done is do my homework,” he told local officials and business leaders at the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce Friday. “I’m a big believer in the fact that it’s easy to say “no” to something, but it’s more important to have answers and solutions to how to reform the system without burdening small business owners.”
Lee worries that government isn’t up to the task of managing a complex health insurance system. Private industry, with its drive to control costs and seek efficiencies, will always do a better job, he believes. “The U.S. spends two times per capita what other countries spend on health care. I look at this as an opportunity to cut out lots of waste, fraud and abuse.”
Lee sees health care reform as a way to help make American businesses more competitive in the global market. Efficiencies in health insurance will ultimately result in more jobs and lower prices on exports.
“I should be voted out of office if we can’t get real reform done.”
In the 1,100 pages of the current health care reform bill, known as H.R. 3,200, there is “not a single paragraph” addressing doctors who practice defensive medicine, Lee points out. The American Medical Association estimates unnecessary tests and treatments prescribed to avoid medical malpractice lawsuits cost consumers between $84 and $151 billion a year. Among other measures, the AMA supports a $250,000 cap on non-medical damages.
Why doesn’t the bill address liability reform? “The current administration accepted $80 million in contributions from the personal injury lobby in 2008,” Lee claims.
The Congressman also questions the number of uninsured — 47 million — that Democratic leaders claim are uninsured. He says 10 million are illegal immigrants who should not qualify for benefits. Several million more are recent college graduates and other young adults. Lee believes those young adults could have access to health care if insurance companies offer riders to keep them on their parent’s health plans until they’re 26 years old.
Lee has sponsored an alternative House bill called the Medical Rights and Reform Act which includes provisions to improve information technology systems, offer incentives to states that reform insurance markets and extend flexibility and control to lower income families.
He also supports allowing insurance companies to cross state lines and for companies which operate in several states to pool their employees into a single plan in order to save money.
“I want to take real dollars out of the system instead of just sharing costs,” he said, pointing out that the current reform plan is like a “shell game,” where public insurance beneficiaries will be subsidized by private insurance companies. Present public health care systems like Medicare and Medicaid keep costs down for their members, but those costs get passed on to other patients. A public health care plan would only pass those costs on to taxpayers, he contends.
As an example of government waste, Lee described H.R. 1018, the “Restore Our American Mustangs Act” which would create 19 million additional acres above an existing 30 million acres set aside on federal land for free-ranging wild mustangs and burros. The $700 billion bill would also include a horse census and birth control programs.
“I tell my Democratic colleagues, ‘We’re mortgaging the future of this country. Please stop.”
During his visit Friday, Lee also visited with physicians and staff at Tri-County Medicine in Geneseo, appeared on WYSL’s Bill Nojay Show and toured the Lakeville Grain Elevator.
Complete story will appear in our Sept. 3 print edition.
Congressman Chris Lee gave an extensive interview in which he claimed that his opposition to universal healthcare was based on “business experience.” Rarely, however, have I seen a less practical and businesslike argument than the one Congressman Lee makes.
He says that “government isn’t up to the task” of managing a health insurance plan, but he seems to forget that the government already manages half a dozen such plans: Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration hospitals, the Military Health System, SCHIP (which he should remember, since he voted in favor of it), and we must not forget the government-sponsored healthcare that he and all the other members of Congress get.
Indeed, Medicare is considered one of the most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world. Although the Congressman claims, according to the article, that “Private industry, with its drive to control costs and seek efficiencies, will always do a better job,” what he doesn’t mention is that they “control costs” is by denying all but the most basic healthcare needs even to the people who actually have insurance. And “efficient” is a word which anyone who’s looked at the math would never use about health care in this country. Health insurance companies take 20 cents out of every dollar you pay them in profit, and another 30 cents for “overhead,” the cost of the bureaucrats you fight with on the phone to get your medical bills paid. All that means that for every dollar you give to your insurance company, only half goes to actual medical treatment.
The government run Medicare system, on the other hand, takes three cents out of every dollar for overhead, and nothing at all for profit. Three percent of money “wasted” by government versus 50 percent by the insurance conglomerates. You don’t need an MBA to know which is more efficient and the better deal. I’m willing to bet that any local businessman, offered the opportunity to cut healthcare costs for himself and his employees in half, would jump on it because that’s just good sense.
Mr. Lee does get some things right: for instance, that the U.S. spends twice as much per capita as other countries spend on health care. And yet he completely ignores the big difference between how the US handles health insurance and the way other countries do. Canada has a public system which guarantees excellent quality health care for all its citizens, while not preventing anyone from having private insurance if they want it. In fact, the US is the only industrialized country that doesn’t have universal health care–and we’re also the only industrialized country where health insurance is so unaffordable, and insurance companies are allowed to treat their customers so badly: overcharging the healthy, rejecting the sick or injured, and dropping you from coverage the minute you start to actually need it. Even those who are happy with their insurance have to ask themselves, if I get sick, is my insurance company really going to pay up?
If Congressman Lee really thinks that government would botch a public health insurance option, here’s my advice to him: don’t use it. The proposed system is entirely volunteer, and no one who doesn’t want to use it ever even needs to know it’s there. Of course, Mr. Lee’s stance is a bit odd considering that he himself has government funded health care as a member of Congress. If he’s so confident that private companies can do better, why doesn’t he reject his government coverage and buy privately?
Instead of addressing the real problems with the cost of health care, or the $4600 per year for every man woman and child in America that’s being skimmed off the top by the insurance industry, Mr. Lee is nibbling around the edges of the issue, like a man rearranging the living room furniture while the house is burning down. He’d rather talk about tort reform, which experts agree is less than one percent of the cost of health care, while giving a free pass to the big insurance conglomerates who broke the system in the first place. If this is Mr. Lee’s business sense, no wonder he made his fortune from the sale of his father’s company, International Motion Control, to the Chinese.
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I agree with Adama Brown — Private Health Insurance companies have done nothing to control the runaway costs of Health Care. Lee has chosen to become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
France, Germany, Singapore, Norway, Canada, and many other nations have Universal Health Care systems that ensure everyone has access to the same health care. Obviously this Health Care has to be limited in scope, which is just plain common sense.
We need some common sense from Chris Lee.
Mike Patterson
Clarence Center, NY
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First I’m not here to defend Congressman Lee he can do it well enough
on his . I’ll introduce myself , I’m a veteran and go to Canadaigua VA.
I will only go this deep into my experience there only to keep my
medical private . I will say that they need to do a lot of improvements
there at all levels of the staff and there concern for “run of the mill ”
veterans . I’m also a member and a Advisory councilman for WSR
and the Organizer of N.Y.S. We Surround Them,9-12 Organizers .
Which I have at my disposal a number of researchers. I will only
respond to Adama Browns first 2 paragraphs . Has SCHIP been in
effect long enough to be judged as a success, NO. Medicare and
Medicaid and SS are near brink of being Bankrupt . The Military does
very well when the politicians keep there noses out of the Military’s
business . So Tell me how are we going to pay for Obamacare .
Keep the printing presses going , monetary suicide ,the dollar will
crash and Hyper inflation will kick in and a quick slide into a major
depression . There is basically 15% that need medical coverage .
85% are happy or content with there health care . What the Liberal
Left and Obama want is to also include ILLEGALS in on the health
care . I and the MAJORITY of GOOD HEARTED AMERICANS do
NOT want to have to be forced to pay a lot more, not just in premiums.
New Taxes will pop out of no where to cover this. How about the Feds
dumping on the States to pay for it another form of suicide . Then
hows This the most important FACT : IT’s UN Constitutional do you
remember that document and the sacrifices those that wrote it took !
Arguing with Idiots is exactly right !
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