In an interesting twist, weeks after a health care meeting in Delray Beach, the Palm Beach County Republican Party had a health care forum on Wednesday, September 3, in the Chambers of the Palm Beach County Governmental Center. Panelists included legislative hopefuls Ed Lynch and Lt. Colonel Allen West, as well as former representative and past Congressman Wexler opponent Ben Graber, and also incumbent Democrat Alcee Hastings. Lynch is running once again for Congressman Wexler’s seat, and Lt. Colonel West is running for Congressman Klein’s seat in the 2010 election cycle. Graber ran against Wexler as an Independent in the 2008 election cycle. The forum was moderated by Palm Beach County Republican Chair Sid Dinerstein and took the format of point/counterpoint followed by a series of questions from the audience. The order of seating was Lynch, Hastings, Dinerstein, West and Graber. Hastings very much held his own in what was a contentious and spirited debate with the other speakers and with a rowdy audience comprised of both Democrats and Republicans. President Obama spoke on health care and health care reform in his address to Congress on Wednesday, September 9.
“The way they are seated on the dais,” said Dinerstein, “it is meant to be point counterpoint. It’s not intended to be sound bites from the left and sound bites from the right.”
Dinerstein introduced a number of attending guests in the audience, both Democrats and Republicans, including long time public servant and former Commissioner Addie Greene, former Congressman Mark Foley, new County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor, Rep. Carl Domino who was running for Seat 25; and others. In the order of speakers, Lynch went first.
“I’d like to thank you for coming,” said Lynch. “We’re here to discuss HR 3200, and this was the bill that was introduced by Congress, and it was tried to be pushed through by Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the recess. I took the time to research the bill, and the devil is in the details. This bill will cut Medicare, and it will eliminate private insurance. It will order end of life counseling for our seniors. It will access our personal records by bureaucrats, and by conservative estimates, we cannot afford it. We hear Democrats saying all the time we cannot afford the status quo, and I agree with them. But the only option we seem to have of universal health care or nothing at all, and that’s where I disagree.”
Lynch said that the private market was the answer for what was wrong with the health insurance industry, and he also felt another problem was pre-existing conditions. Too many people were being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and that was just wrong.
“We can repair our health care system, and we can repair our insurance system,” said Lynch. “We need to address the problem of people being denied coverage for their pre-existing conditions by eliminating state mandates and allow competition across state lines for individuals. We need to increase primary care physicians and drive down costs by instituting something that is absent in this bill which is tort reform, and we need to make it portable by encouraging personal choice policies.”
Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-23) spoke next, and he thanked Dinerstein for moderating the meeting, and also the other speakers for taking the time to discuss the issue of health care with him. Hastings said he was in support of public option, and also single payer. Hastings said he would support whatever plan got the most support, whether it was single payer or public option.
“I am a fifth generation Floridian,” said Hastings. “I will be 73 on Saturday. I have represented District 23 for nineteen years. I am a person ruled by my feelings about people. Let me ask you something. If you just look around the room, you see that most of us here have insurance. Let me make a commitment to you. I will continue to advocate until something else is on the table. But those of us who are uninsured, I will ask you this. Has the cost of your insurance gone down at all in the last decade? The answer to that is no. The question I put to you is what are your plans for cost containment. Another thing is I don’t think any of us are not mindful that there are uninsured people in this country. How do we handle those who are not insured. I also don’t believe that any of us believes when I hear about the government programs, that there is talk about Medicare and Medicaid being cut. That is not true.”
Lt. Colonel Allen West spoke next, and he thanked the GOP for organizing the event, and he hoped the Palm Beach County Democratic Party would have one of its own, and they would have an interesting discussion and debate. He also hoped they would invite some of the same speakers that were present in the room that day. West said that everything should go back to the Constitution, which was the founding document on which the country was founded. West said that document supported limited government, and he supported that as well.
“One of the mandates was to promote the general welfare,” said West. “You go back and do constitutional studies. It’s about protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The government should not be controlling our lives and not controlling our pursuit of happiness. They are going against the basic principles on which this government was founded. You have to go back to understanding that, and get away from partisan ideologies which were the antithesis of what our founding fathers intended for this country.”
West said that was in place for health care in the country was “pretty dog gone good,” and what was there needed to be tweaked.
“There are things that we can do to improve our health care system,” said West, “that won’t cost the American public one single dime. During this time of recession, that last thing is important. Do not violate the liberties of our citizens, and take away the choices and options they have.”
Dr. Graber, who was a former Broward County Commissioner and former Broward County mayor, and also a former representative, spoke of how he supported the Lawton Chiles Health Care Reform Act in the 1990s, and how that bill had passed while former President Bill Clinton’s plan had failed. He said that particular plan was very much a bipartisan bill, and that was one of the reasons why it had passed. Graber spoke of how the current health care environment took away the health care situation from the patient and put it into the hands of the insurance companies, lawyers and other agencies, thus damaging the patient/doctor relationship and destroying the framework of health care as a whole.
“It was done because the key was the patient,” said Graber. “You have to do something that provides care for the patient first. It should be a patient driven program. In the beginning, it was the doctor, and the patient. Now, we have insurance companies, mandates and lawyers. This is not the way health care should be. You judge how a health care plan works by how it takes care of certain people in our society, and that includes children, the disabled, and the middle class.”
Dinerstein asked the first question about health care access for seniors. Hastings answered that question and spoke of how the President of the United States was going to address the country on Wednesday, September 9, and that the three plans that were being considered were the three that has been reviewed and considered by Congress.
“The president’s plan does not exist,” said Hastings. “A lot of what we are talking about doesn’t exist because there is no final plan. What will wind up happening is we will go back to Congress in September. There will be the groups that will meet, including blue dogs, black dogs and whatever kind of dog you can think of in my party. They are going to try and leverage their best positions. If we pass anything out of the House, it will go to the Senate. If we pass anything out of the Senate, it will go to conference, and in that conference, is where most of the President’s actions are likely to take place. I expect we will hear from him.”
Hastings, with his voice rising so he could be heard in the back of the County Commission chambers, also said that there was no such thing as a death panel, and he kept hearing about it, much to his dismay and anger.
“There ain’t no such thing as a death panel,” said Hastings. “I keep hearing about these things. It is not going to exist in this bill or any bill that I’m involved in. You have my assurance on that.”
West, however, disagreed and noted that there was legislation being discussed and debated in the form of the HR 3200, and that legislation had been voted upon. The wording of that proposed bill indicated “end of life counseling” with patients, and a health care commissioner or health care committee. West said he did not need a government bureaucrat deciding on health care. Graber said that the President had not put out anything of his own, so HR 3200, for now, was what was being considered, Graber said. Graber felt that HR 3200, in its current incarnation, was a bad bill, but that it could be fixed.
“I believe that the Senate will write a bill,” said Graber, “and I don’t know if it’s the right bill. The goal is to take what we have and make it better. No one can argue with that. How we get there is what we are arguing about. The decision has to be made by the patient and the doctor, and not with the government influencing it. It’s a mistake to pay doctors and expect them to do anything except take care of patients and save lives.”
Lynch also said that HR 3200 was what was being considered, and he felt that it was Congress’s intention to pass it.
“Although it’s not a law or a bill right now,” said Lynch, “we can clearly see their intention for what they want.”
The next question was about how the proposed bill would be key to deficit reduction. West said that an independent analyst had looked at the proposed bill, and that the country could not afford it. He also said that President Obama had stood up during a recent forum and said the country was broke. West said there were three things you don’t do in an economic downturn.
“You don’t raise taxes,” said West. “You don’t print more money, and you don’t borrow more money.”
Graber said that cost was a factor, and there had to be another plan out there which would not cost so much. He also said you could not throw a public option plan into the private sector. Graber said that the best thing people could do would be to take care of themselves and stay healthy. Taxing cigarettes was counterproductive, he said, because people smoked, and they usually did not change their lifestyles. The government writing a law trying to change behavior was very unrealistic.
“The most important thing we can do is to keep ourselves healthy and alive,” said Graber. “If you’re going to finance a plan on that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn, I am going to sell you.”
Lynch also supported personal choice as a part of fixing the current health care system, and he spoke about the fraud and waste in the current Medicare system. Hastings agreed with Lynch about fraud and waste in the Medicare system, and also with Graber about pre-existing conditions. As far as eliminating a deficit, said Hastings, he disagreed with Graber. Although it might be unpopular and people certainly did not want to hear about it, he said, you had to raise taxes and cut spending during an economic downturn. As far as the fraud and waste in the current system, there was one thing to call that, and it was greed.
“I believe that people with pre existing conditions ought to be taken care of,” said Hastings. “I also agree with Dr. Graber, and that if you leave your job, you ought to be able to carry your insurance with you. Our hospitals are being crushed. I hear the argument that illegal people should not be covered. People who are in this country unlawfully go to emergency rooms. You and I wind up paying for it. You can shout all you want, but that is the harsh reality.”
Lynch and West said that taking care of illegal immigrants was wreaking havoc on the current system. Lynch said he would never post an immigration officer at the door of an emergency room. Both Lynch and West said that the person needed to be responsible for the costs when they came out of the hospital. West also said that if HR 3200 was so good, all the people in government should sign onto it. “If HR 3200 is so good, let everyone sign up to be a part of the plan,” said West.
After the questions from Dinerstein, members of the audience asked their own questions. Hastings said that America had the best health care in the world, and he was not questioning the type of care, but the access and the cost.
“We have the best medical care,” said Hastings. “I simply believe that the cost is spiraling to a point that it becomes inaccessible for more and more people. I cannot count for you the number of people who have gone to Germany for care. People who have gone to Paris for HIV care. These are medical changes that people take when they are in desperate straits.”
As for people who kept throwing out whether America wanted socialized medicine Hastings suggested that perhaps people ought to rethink what they were saying. The Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health, as well as the VA Hospital, all could be considered such examples, and if people did not like the government meddling in their health care, maybe these agencies should be shut down. They were needed agencies and should continue to provide care, he said.
“Let’s close the Center for Disease Control,” said Hastings. “Let’s close the National Institute of Health. Let’s close the VA Hospital. That’s socialized medicine. If you don’t like the portions of our system that are socialized, are you willing to close them. The public health option is something that will help lower costs. It will not eliminate the insurance companies. The greatest beneficiary of HR 3200 would be insurance companies.”
Lynch said that the insurance companies make money because people let them make money, and that the beauty of the free market system was that people could chose their own health coverage, and those insurance companies would get ungreedy quick.
“The free market allows you to make your own determination,” said Lynch.
In a question about physicians how they practiced medicine, Hastings said that physicians should not be practicing defensive medicine, and he brought up what happened in the State of Florida when the subject of a national catastrophe plan for wind storm insurance was proposed.
“I can’t tell you the number of companies that left the State of Florida,” said Hastings. “What insurance companies do is make money. That’s the business they are in. The way they make money is to produce risk and avoid it. In the health area, if we were to open that up, they would cherry pick. In an area where there are so many seniors, they would not come in here.”
Graber concurred that doctors were practicing defensive medicine as well as ordering tests that were not necessary. Given the highly volatile legal environment in the State of Florida, doctors, he said, were afraid they would get sued if they did not order a test and later something was found out to be wrong with a patient.
“The doctors are afraid to not order testing,” said Graber. “We have a whole host of doctors who are trained in defensive medicine. The system is broken. Government has a function, and insurance has a function, and things are not functioning properly. It started with the last administration. The Bush administration stopped funding research in this country for eight years.”
Graber also said that in trying to resolve the health care issues, that you needed to move slowly and carefully. At risk were vital programs for research and care, and that was not good in the face of a swine flu epidemic that was rearing its ugly head.
“If you are going to change course, you need to move it slowly,” said Graber. “It should not be revolutionary. There is too much at stake to lose.”
Lynch and West thanked Hastings for attending the forum and talking with them. Lynch said that the Republican party was not the “party of no,” and that sitting down and talking about health care issues with someone from another party had been beneficial. Lynch said that he truly did admire Hastings, and he was going to try to change his mind about the issues.
“I truly do admire him,” said Lynch about Hastings. “I am going to try to change his mind.”
Hastings thanked the other members of the panel for coming together and speaking on the issue, and he said he looked forward to more civilized debates rather than the angry and troubling debates that had been grabbing headlines all summer long. All panelists agree that the topic of health care and health care reform should be conducted in a civil manner, and that the shouting and rage at the other health care debates was unnecessary and downright dangerous.
“Let’s try to tone this down,” said Hastings, “and work together.”
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