Houma Today - Scalise Talks Flood Insurance, Health Care

News Article

By Jacob Batte

Residents applauded flood insurance reform and questioned national health care and the IRS at local town hall meetings U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise hosted Tuesday.

Scalise, R-Metairie, who represents portions of southern Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, met with residents at the Government Tower in Houma, where he has a regional office, and the Mathews Government Complex. About 28 people showed up at the meetings.

Residents expressed frustration with their health care, including the Affordable Care Act and Medicare. Scalise, a longtime Obama antagonist, blamed problems with health care reform on the president and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

"I do not have any confidence in the way that Secretary Sebelius is running that department, but frankly she's running at the behest of President Obama," he said. "I don't think she knows what she's doing. She or somebody under her should have been let go after the debacle with the website. They really don't seem to care. They're doing an embarrassing job."

The six-year veteran of Congress touted the GOP's American Health Care Reform Act of 2013 as a substitute to the Affordable Care Act.

The reform would repeal the Affordable Care Act, allow people to purchase health care across state lines, allow families to deduct their health care costs and expand access to health savings accounts.

Critics of the GOP's health care reform say it benefits the rich but offers little to no support for low-income residents who would otherwise benefit from the Affordable Care Act. Tax deductions are only valuable to those with higher tax rates, and tax-subsidized health savings accounts aren't realistic for low-income families who struggle to save money in the current market, they add.

Scalise also criticized Obama for refusing to work with Congress on certain issues.

"Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congress and they balanced budgets and got the country working," he said.

On the flood insurance program reform, Scalise said last week's congressional rollback on the some of the changes was a big victory not just in Louisiana, but across the country.

"A colleague of mine from the state of Washington said her house never flooded, and she said that FEMA just came in and remapped a part of her district and it would have eviscerated her community. They were going to get crazy premium increases just like we were. The good part of that is that it motivated a lot of people to help fix this," he said.

The legislation, which is expected to be signed by the president before the end of the month, reverses much of a 2012 overhaul of the government's much-criticized flood insurance program after angry homeowners facing sharp cost hikes protested.

The bill would scale back big flood insurance rate increases faced by hundreds of thousands of homeowners. The measure also would allow below-market insurance rates to be passed on to people buying homes in flood zones with taxpayer-subsidized policies.

Critics say Washington is caving to political pressure to undo one of the few recent overhauls it has managed to pass.

Another provision allows sellers of older homes built before original flood insurance risk maps were drafted to pass taxpayer-subsidized policies on to the people buying their homes instead of requiring purchasers to pay rates based on flood risk.

The measure also gives relief to people who bought homes after the changes were enacted in July 2012 and faced immediate jumps in their rates.

Scalise also touched on his thoughts regarding illegal immigration and the IRS.

The country needs to secure its borders and enforce current laws before working on any reform other than changes to the visa program.

"There are people that come here to learn. Some of the best minds in the world will graduate from Stanford in engineering, right down the street from Silicon Valley where every company will offer you $100,000 to work. We help educate you and our immigration laws say if you're here on a student visa, the day you graduate and you actually have real value to our country. We force you to leave and compete against us," Scalise said.

Scalise said Obama is using the tax agency to target his political enemies.

"He's using the IRS as a tool to punish the people that disagree with him publicly," he said.

Scalise also brought health care reform into his criticism of the IRS, which will be imposing penalties on those not getting insurance policies.

"Who knows an IRS agent that can give you mouth to mouth that you would want to give you mouth to mouth?" he asked.

Scalise will continue his series of town hall meetings today in St. Tammany Parish, Thursday in Tangipahoa Parish and Friday in Plaquemines, Jefferson and Orleans parishes.

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