Sen.: 'Should be worried'

LAFAYETTE — U.S. Sen. David Vitter addressed a crowd of hundreds Monday afternoon to criticize President Obama’s national health care reform proposals, while several New Iberia residents were there to tell the senator, “We’re sick of being trampled on.”

“We want to get our country back,” New Iberia TEA Party organizer Lynn Dartez said in a phone interview before the meeting. “We don’t want death care, and we don’t want Congress to meddle at all in our health care business.”

Dartez said he was attending Vitter’s health care forum with a few of his TEA Party members, while hundreds of Acadiana residents were turned away at the Lafayette Public Library’s South Regional Branch doors during a torrential downpour.

About 100 people were able to see and listen to Vitter, R-Metairie, in the same room, while more than 350 other audience members were packed into five other rooms of the library to watch him live on monitors.

“The problem with a 1,000-page bill is you can’t have a brief synopsis,” Vitter said of the bill before Congress. “You can’t have it in plain English. There are so many hidden things tucked away.”

Vitter answered questions submitted before the meeting from audience members, most of whom spoke out against Obama’s plan and other Democratic health care proposals being debated.

Elderly residents expressed concern over how the health care overhaul would affect their Medicare benefits, which Vitter said would be cut by more than $500 million to fund a public option.

“You should be worried,” Vitter said. “You don’t deserve that.”

The crowd also heard from a panel that included Dr. Andy Blalock, physician at Our Lady of Lourdes, Lafayette businessman Max Hoyt and Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research center.

“The United States has the best health care in the world,” Blalock said. “We cannot allow Washington to ruin our health care while they try to find a way to pay for it.”

However, according to the World Health Organization health care system rankings released in 2000, the United States health care system ranked 37th in the world, Forbes  magazine and several other news outlets reported.

Blalock told a supportive crowd that the public option plan would increase health care costs, increase the federal deficit, increase patient waiting time and still leave millions of Americans without coverage.

Hoyt, owner of Pixus Digital Printing, told the audience of his struggles as a small business owner to provide health insurance for his 16 employees. Hoyt has seen a double-digit increase in hospitalization premiums, he said, but added Obama’s plan is not the answer.

“No country has ever afforded free, top-of-the-line health care and survived,” Hoyt said.

Turner warned the crowd to be leery of Obama’s newest proposal, a nonprofit co-op that would replace the public option, calling it the “blanket over the Trojan horse.”

Turner also said if this bill passes, the Mayo Clinic and several other leading health clinics in the country told Congress in an open letter that they will “close their doors.”

However, the open letter does not state the clinics will close. The letter, found at www.mayoclinic.org, states that the clinic supports legislation that will include Medicare payment reforms, and urges the president and Congress to pass a bill being proposed currently that includes the Medicare reforms.

The co-op idea has only been brought up over the past few days, and though details are sketchy, it is broadly defined as “private, nonprofit consumer-owned” health care, much like rural electric and water co-ops, The New York Times reported.

Vitter said no one is sure yet of what the co-op entails, but urged attendees to stay informed on any updates on the health care proposal.

When Congress’ August recess is over, Vitter said he will try to add an amendment to the Senate bill that will force all members of Congress to use whatever public option they pass.

Vitter said a similar House measure failed in a key committee, “with the help of a no-vote from Charlie Melancon,” a Napoleonville Democratic representative who is expected to run against Vitter in the 2010 senatorial race.

Melancon’s spokeswoman Robin Winchell, however, said he did not support the public option in the House bill and voted against the bill in committee.

“(Melancon) believes every individual’s right to make their own health care decisions must be protected, including choosing a health insurance plan,” Winchell said. “No one should be forced into the public option or any other health care plan.”

A provision that would have prohibited the federal government from funding abortions also failed because of Democrats, Vitter said after hearing from a concerned Catholic who said she would act as a “conscientious objector” and not pay taxes that would fund abortions.

Vitter offered two alternatives to a public option: an association health care plan in which small businesses could band together through trade organizations across state lines to increase the number of participants, and an increase in the number of health savings plans that would lower premiums and increase deductibles.

Though Vitter has voted largely along conservative lines, Dartez said he and a few others in New Iberia do not support his re-election because “we need to get everybody out and really clean house and start over.”

“We can’t have one corrupted official in there,” Dartez said. “All the same stuff will start happening again. We need to get the right people in office.”

Vitter commended the crowd throughout the meeting for coming out and speaking up on the health care issue. The last three weeks of ongoing rallies against the proposal have had a large impact, Vitter said, but added the debate is not over.

“Stay in their face and don’t ever go away,” Vitter said. “The key is to stay involved, stay loud. Don’t ever go to sleep on this issue.”