Kevin Brady Scare Tactics

As the debate over healthcare reform heats up, the least that our elected representatives could do is stick to the facts. In Congressman Kevin Brady’s recent email newsletter, he predicts many horrid results of health care reform. A few of the gems he purports are: “People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth”, “If you're sick enough to be admitted, the average wait is 23 hours”, and “Some towns hold lotteries to determine who gets a doctor.” These baseless scare tactics have nothing to do with reform that has been proposed in Congress this year. As I think it has been stated a million times, proposed changes would not force you to change your health insurance plan or your doctor unless you wanted to. The introduction of a public option is meant to increase coverage of the currently uninsured while increasing competition in the marketplace. This lowers costs for everyone, including those not on the public plan, and keeps insurance companies honest. If you’ve ever had to deal with one, you know it’s a lacking quality. It’s common sense that if someone can afford to get preventative care; they lessen their healthcare costs over their lifetime. These are costs that those who currently have insurance are paying for anyway in the price of higher premiums and higher hospital bills. It’s common sense that if we don’t do something to fix this system today, it’s not only going to bankrupt the country due to rising Medicare/Medicaid costs, it’s going to bankrupt you and I, who pay higher costs each year. In fact, many Americans are already there, with 60% of bankruptcies being the result of medical bills. This proposal may not yet be perfect as it works it way through Congress, but it seeks to fix a major problem. That’s more than what I can say about Congressman Brady and the rest of the Republicans who complain about this plan but offer no solution of their own. Instead they send out emails warning people that they may have to pull out their own teeth or wait for the town clerk to draw their name before they can go to the doctor. Give me a break!

Published in The Courier, Opinion Page, 7/26/2009