Why a Nobody, Who Never Held Office,
Should Run for Congress
Health Insurance in the 1st Congressional District:
The Crisis that Wasn't There
The goal is to make health coverage available to our citizens without adding trillions to the national debt. Our current representative and his party would re-invent our health care at huge expense to begin an American imitation of the failed government-run health plans of Canada and Europe.
In the 1st Congressional District 94.5% Have It, But That's Not All
The statistics cited below are gleaned from Tables B27001 and B16008,
2008 American Community Survey Census Estimates.
CD 1 Population Over 18* With No Coverage: 60,114
Subtract Non-Citizens of CD 1, Over 18, Presumed No Coverage**: -20,639
Remaining Total Citizens Over 18 With No Coverage: 39,475
Subtract Population Over 65, With No Coverage, But Medicare Age Eligible: -1,093
Remaining Total CD 1 Citizens, No Health Coverage: 38,382***
Compared to the total District population of 703,335, the adult citizens having no health coverage is only 5.5% of the 1st Congressional District.
That 5.5% is the incumbent's excuse to spend a trillion and force a Government takeover of the other 94.5%!
*Under 18 are eligible for Medicaid in New York.
**The Census does not provide the number of non-citizens in CD 1 with no coverage, except to say that 46.2% of non-citizens nationally do not have coverage. The figure 20,103 represents 44.5% of the non-citizens in CD1.
***This number is probably lower because the disabled may be eligible for Medicare and the low income may be eligible for Medicaid. It may also include people who pay for their own health care costs out of pocket, as well as those who can afford, but do not want coverage. Also, low cost insurance may be obtained from one of NYS's programs with higher income allowances, shown below.
Still think we need more Government programs for the 5.5%? Here's a screen shot from New York State's "Consumer Guide to Health Insurance". These are existing programs, not proposals.
Challenge: Please show me the case of an uninsured adult citizen in our District who can't afford coverage and would not be served by one of the existing Federal or State programs!
The "Plan from Strength" Alternative
On the other hand, health insurance could be improved for everyone if we plan from the strengths of our existing health care industry, creating jobs and growth at the same time. One way to slash the price of health insurance for everyone, is by allowing fair competition among insurance companies. That's right. Congress can slash health premiums by allowing competition. If you're buying insurance for your home, your car, or even life insurance, you can choose from any plan offered in the USA, regardless of where the insurance company is located. Incredibly, this is not true for health insurance! Right now, you can only buy from the state where you live, giving those companies a monopoly.
If that simple rule were changed by Congress, allowing health insurance to be purchased across state lines....
Wherever you move in the USA, you could
bring your insurance with you!
Greatly increased competition between companies would
force lower premiums!
The giant pool of all Americans would make it possible to create
new products to fit individual needs!
More families could
afford health insurance!
Expansion of the health care industry would
create jobs!
All without spending a dime of taxpayer money!
Americans should have the freedom to choose any health plan they want, from anywhere in the country, just as we do for auto, home, and life insurance! The more you get to choose from, the more they have to compete for your business. The more affordable, the greater the number of people can buy it - and it doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime! If there is then an American citizen in need, who truly cannot afford health insurance, that's what Medicaid is all about. We could even enhance it with a monetary allowance for people to purchase insurance, at a tiny fraction of the incumbent's trillion dollar plus plan. His scheme is just another case of using borrowed money to tear it down and start from scratch with no way of knowing where it would end up.
Our current representative would turn health care into tangled webs of government bureaucracy. In Britain and Canada that has resulted in a nightmare of waiting lists so long, often for vital tests and operations, that their citizens run to the USA for treatment to avoid dying while waiting for treatment! Take a look at the headline of British newspaper The Telegraph about what happens when the government takes over health care, "Patients forced to live in agony after NHS (National Health Service) refuses to pay for painkilling injections". The injections referred to are steroids, which is sometimes the only treatment for chronic back pain.
The Wait Time Alliance, which monitors Canadian health care had this to say about cancer care in their June 2009 report: "According to the study results, the median wait for radical (curative) cancer care was 46 days or nearly 7 weeks. As Figure 2 demonstrates, the majority of these treatments exceeded the CARO benchmark for curative cancer treatment of 4 weeks (2 weeks for the consult wait and 2 weeks for treatment). This is troublesome given the clear link between a delay in radiation therapy and a chance of cure."
America's hospitals and universities tout their achievements and celebrate their breakthroughs because they compete by investing in new and better treatments. It's the incentive to be on the cutting edge. A sure way to kill that driving force is to set up the government as the insurer/arbiter of what treatment to offer, who will get it and when.
According to the New York Times, here's what the American Medical Association initially had to say about the creation of a government health insurance plan, "The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans." They went on to say, "...the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers." The health insurance industry in America would be severely undercut and have great difficulty withstanding unfair competition from the federal government, closing businesses and losing jobs. Let's plan from strength, instead.
Help Offer a Real Alternative...
Please send an email to The Suffolk County Republican Committee to express your support for Richard Blumenthal as they consider who will be the candidate in the 2010 congressional election. Click here to send your email.
Or, if you a use a web-based email like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL, please send an email expressing your support for Richard Blumenthal to office@suffolkrepublicans.com
