We Need to Reform Health Care

Statement

The way that health care services are delivered in this country needs to be reformed. Our great national debate currently underway should be focused on how best to do it, and understandably there is a great deal of passion from all perspectives because health care is so deeply personal to individuals. People can and do die when not treated properly. However, we need to debate this vital issue rationally and civilly.

We have reached a crisis in this country because of the economic impact of health care. Approximately 17% of our Gross Domestic Product is spent on health care, or about $2.5 trillion each year. When that much money is spent on anything, you can be sure that there are powerful organizations committed to ensuring that nothing changes. Those organizations are working overtime to convince people that health care reform is too risky, too dangerous to be undertaken.

But if we do nothing, we can expect health care costs to double over the next ten years, just as they have over the last ten years. Bernadette of Mountaintop called in to my telephone town meeting earlier this week to tell me her story. She works for a small company with just 16 employees. The owner has worked hard to be responsible by providing health insurance to his employees, even though premiums have increased 27 to 33% every year for the last several years. To keep costs manageable, their insurance now requires greater co-pays and deductibles from employees. Bernadette had the misfortune of getting sick last year, and her son broke his ankle. Those two illnesses put her $10,000 in debt with co-pays and deductibles.

There are many Bernadettes in this country with similar stories, and it is for people like her and her employer that we need to find a better way. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to propose creating a national health care system. If it were easy, we would have done it decades ago. It is not easy, as I think everyone is coming to realize while watching the contentious debates now taking place in Congress and in public forums around the country. Should the government create its own insurance plan to compete with private insurers? Should we mandate that all individuals have health insurance? Should we require employers over a certain size to offer health insurance to their employees? And above all, how should we pay for health care?

The United States has some of the finest health care professionals and institutions in the world. Wealthy foreigners flock to our hospitals to get state-of-the-art treatments. We need to take care to keep that level of excellence. But we need to ensure that non-wealthy people also have access to medical care that can save lives and improve the quality of life. Although we spend about twice as much per capita on health care as any other industrialized nation in the world, we rank near the bottom of the list when comparing health outcomes using objective criteria such as infant mortality rates.

President Obama deserves enormous credit for taking on this challenge. He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and has encouraged Congress to reach a consensus on reforming the system. Members of Congress like myself are now reaching out to the people we represent so that we can understand what is most important to you in the health care system. On my web site I have posted a variety of resources to help you understand the issues under debate. Take the time to check them out at http://Kanjorski.house.gov. Send me an email at paul.kanjorski@mail.house.govThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Send me a letter at The Stegmaier Building, 7 N. Wilkes-Barre Blvd., Suite 400M, Wilkes-Barre PA 18702, or call my office at (570) 825-2200. We have a lot of big decisions to make in the coming months, and I need to hear from you.

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