Langevin discusses health reforms at town hall
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Langevin Town Hall
U.S. Rep. James Langevin brings the health care debate to Rhode Island.
NBC 10/Bill Rappleye
Some Rhode Islanders arrive early for a health care reform town hall meeting at Warwick City Hall.
Published: August 20, 2009
WARWICK, R.I.—U.S. Rep. James Langevin kept calm Wednesday as he told a rowdy town hall meeting that planned health care reforms would not lead to a federal health insurance takeover and that he supports proposals to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private plans.
Langevin told more than 400 people who packed Warwick City Hall that the so-called public option would not be mandatory, adding that it is intended to serve those who cannot afford coverage.
“This is not a big government takeover of insurance,“ Langevin told the meeting’s first questioner, to loud cheers and jeers.
Still, most of those attending the meeting wanted to know how the reforms would affect them.
Elizabeth Smith, 45, of East Greenwich, broke into tears as she contrasted the care she would receive under “rationed health care” with what she felt was exemplary treatment for her 101-year-old grandmother.
“As a pre-menopausal woman at risk of osteoporosis, will I be denied the hip replacement my late grandmother was able to receive?“ Smith said.
Attendees on both sides of the debate carried signs expressing their views, including those reading “Taxpayer revolt!“ and “Insure people, not profits” as well as “Standing together for health insurance reform.“
Democrats have struggled to get traction in the health care debate as Republican opponents have mounted a vocal campaign against plans they consider too costly and intrusive.
About 300 people who didn’t get into the venue crowded the sidewalk outside and engaged in an impromptu debate, The Providence Journal reported.
The Rev. Eugene T. Dyszlewski, pastor of Riverside Congregational Church in East Providence, couldn’t wait for health care reforms. He told the newspaper that “too many people in my congregation have lost their insurance and lost their homes. These are real people.“
A Bradley Hospital administrator, Dr. Marge Paccione, said “the quality of care in this country is not even in the top 25 countries in the world, and yet we pay the highest rates.“
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Reader Reactions
The bill HR3200 can be found at energycommerce.house.gov this is the one that the House submitted. It is a PDF file, 1017 pages. Suggest you book mark it or put in favorites to read at your leisure. We are all still waiting for the finance bill to be put out.
Links to the bill HR 3200 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 can be found here:
http://edlabor.house.gov/markups/2009/07/hr-3200-americas-affordable-he.shtml
www.lumberjackingmovie.com
How do get a copy of the proposed bill? I would like to read it for myself. I like to make an educated decision….
Amazing…..the ones screaming the loudest against this already have health care either by employer or medicare. I can’t believe the ones on medicare especially! They have theirs but don’t want anybody else to have theirs too1
Selfish…plain selfish. I bet they go to church on Sunday a see them selves as good Christians.
I am just wondering if this can be done without the government, then WHY hasn’t it??
Clearly, health care has been out of control for quite sometime….where have all those who feel it can be fixed without the government been?
Please give me some ideas as to how this huge issue can be dealt with. I am willing to listen to your ideas.
The current state of the bill does do it without government control of health care. The public OPTION (as in not mandatory), which is still up in the air actually, would only be a portion of the plan and would help small business owners be able to offer an affordable plan to their employees since a lot of small business owners can’t currently afford it. It would also help the millions of people who don’t currently have coverage, or people who lose their jobs, etc.
In addition, thus far what has consistently been projected that 2/3 of the cost can be covered by reforms. A portion of the other 1/3 of the cost can be partially covered by wellness and prevention programs. If taxes are going to go up, Obama has pledged not to put that additional tax cost on the backs of the working/middle class. People who make over $250,000 might have their itemized deductions put on the same level as everybody else (currently they get a tax break here), which would restore the itemized deduction levels to that which existed under Ronald Reagan.
I just heard Obama talking about this like 2 hours ago.
BTW we pay twice as much for our health as any other country and our health care only ranks 37th. France ranks #1.
Marge,
I am for lower premiums and better care, but not for government running it. I am scared of a complete takeover of healthcare as in Canada and the UK. I know people will argue that they are happy with the care in those countries, but sometimes people become complacent. As to the reference of “working hard” it applies to this discussion in the respect that before any of us are even allowed to receive a paycheck the government takes its cut. And their cut will only get bigger. Also, why aren’t our elected representatives exploring more options that might be less controversial? I am trying to do my job, but now I feel like I also need to be making sure they do theirs. There are not enough hours in the day as it is. And lets talk about the media doing their job. If they would provide more un-biased reporting people like me would not feel that it is so necessary to try to get people to look at this another way. A government plan is not the only way out of this. They just want you to think it is. I think as a people we are more capable than they are of taking care of ourselves, don’t you? Don’t you believe that we can do this without their corruption and inefficiency? Why aren’t they going to be on the same plan if this goes through? Because they see themselves as better than us. There is a boatload of knowledge out there free for all to see, unbiased facts abound. We just need to believe that we can do it without government control.
I just don’t understand what some people are so afraid of.
Personally, I welcome the reform of health care. We pay the far more for our health care than many others, and most of the money is eaten up by for-profit health care insurance. These large insurance companies dictate everything from what is covered to what kinds of drugs we can get.
They cannot even coordinate benefits from one state to another within the same insurance company. When my father was dying of cancer, he received treatments in Boston. We had to spend hours on the phone each month because his insurance was through the RI Blue Cross, and they “code” treatments differently in Mass. My mom has leukemia, and she takes hundreds of dollars in prescriptions each month….because the insurance companies say that is what they should cost.
I believe more choice will only provide us with more options, and it may lead to lower premiums.
Who is not for that??
Many people posting here keep blabbing on about how they work hard. I fail to see how that relates to the health care debate.
You are buying that death panel garbage? This one’s easy to debunk by actually reading the bill.
Currently, if you want to specify what you want to happen to you if you ever have to be put on life support, it is not covered. The bill will cover it. It is not mandatory and it remains your own choice what to do, just like it is now, only you will not have to pay for it out of your own pocket.
There is no text in the bill that comes even close to that and I challenge you to prove me wrong. If that is the sort of thing you actually believe then you have no credibility whatsoever. When I first heard that lie I didn’t think anyone would actually fall for it.
The fact is that talking with your doctor about what YOU want to do near the end of life, whether it be to keep you hooked up to machines as a vegetable or whatever you want, it’s your choice. The government is not making these choices.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200908200002
“REALITY: Advance care planning is not mandatory in the House health care bill. Section 1233 of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009—which includes “Page 425”—amends the Social Security Act to ensure that advance care planning will be covered if a patient requests it from a qualified care provider [America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, Sec. 1233]. According to an analysis of the bill produced by the three relevant House committees, the section “[p]rovides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Instructs CMS to modify ‘Medicare & You’ handbook to incorporate information on end-of-life planning resources and to incorporate measures on advance care planning into the physician’s quality reporting initiative.“
“REALITY: “Death panel” claims have been conclusively discredited. In one of more than 40 media reports debunking claims of euthanasia and “death panels,“ PolitiFact wrote: “We’ve looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn’t. There’s certainly no ‘death board’ that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. ... [Palin] said that the Democratic plan will ration care and ‘my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,“ whether they are worthy of health care.‘ Palin’s statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!“ [PolitiFact.com, 8/10/09]“
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