Idaho Mountain Express: Idaho senators and congressmen should venture out of their offices

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Friday, November 20, 2009

Idaho senators and congressmen should venture out of their offices

It's pretty cozy if you're a senator or representative serving in Washington, D.C.

The generous taxpayers of America and their employers long ago agreed to provide elected officials with good health insurance to keep officials focused on work instead of worries about averting personal financial destruction as a result of catastrophic illness.

Idaho's senators and congressmen work in taxpayer-funded offices that have both heat and light—comfortable places where study, discussions and an occasional nap can occur.

From their offices, it must be hard for Idaho's senators and representatives—all of whom have gone on record opposing the major health care reforms before Congress—to understand the risks, tradeoffs, insecurities and fears that are the result of today's health insurance options.

Idaho's senators and representatives need to get out of their cozy offices, away from their political handlers, out of their comfort zones and hit the streets.

They need to talk to small-business owners, bruised by insurance costs, who have no way to get a good deal for employees. They need to hear from companies that must weigh the drain of high health-care costs on development and expansion against leaving employees and families without health insurance.

They need to talk to uninsured working parents about their fears for their children and themselves should illness strike.

They need to talk to working parents who have lost health insurance because they were laid off. They need to meet people who are dying because they are uninsured or underinsured and can't get necessary treatments.

They need to talk to middle-class families driven to bankruptcy and homelessness by catastrophic illness.

They need to talk to hospitals about the increasing numbers of uninsured people who finally come to expensive emergency rooms for treatment of illnesses that basic care could have prevented.

They need to talk to hospitals about how they have no choice but to pass along the exorbitant costs of treating poor people in emergency rooms to people who pay.

They need to hang out with the growing numbers of homeless people in Idaho, spend a day on the street and a night trying to find a place to sleep in one of Boise's overcrowded homeless shelters.

They need to sit with county commissioners and listen as desperate, indigent people are forced to set aside their dignity to beg for public help to reduce the effects of their illnesses.

If members of Idaho's delegation really understood that reform is about the real fear and pain of real people, could they continue to be satisfied using Band-Aids on a system that clearly needs an overhaul?

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The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing Inc.

11/21/09 - 09:00

What about-The need to talk to about hospitals about charging other people more to make up for their losses on Medicare patients?? Are you this ignorant or did you just conveniently leave this out as it would reflect badly on new government mandated health care?

What about taking to people who will lose their rural hospitals once there is a government mandated health care plan and no Medicare Advantage insurance?

Also, why not talk to the majority of people who for some reason are satisfied with their health care and doing just fine. Of course, this does nothing to further your agenda of another government run entitlement like Social Security and Medicare that will be paid for by and go mostly to the middle class. After all, is this not where the votes are?

Ray – Sun Valley

11/21/09 - 06:22

The Idaho Mountain Express - "there you go again". What has Government ever done right or efficiently. Nothing, period, end of conversation.

coyote_song – Kamiah

11/20/09 - 11:15

Deep Sigh,

First time I read this I thought "What is the use, this person doesn't have a clue as to what they are saying". For example, tell just how the proposed Obamacare is going to fix "homelessness"? Plus, they are completely incorrect on assuming Obamacare is going to lower health care costs or provide additional services. Much to the contrary we will be introduced to rationing, waiting lines, a paucity of physicians, physicians moving off shore, increased taxes (that we could have used to pay for food and care (hello homeless folks), and etc.

But since I knew this would be useless, lets make really simple by examining what current government boondoogles...medicare, medicaid, social security, public vs. private education, or the US mail. Instead think about the IRS dictating what you are to do, what services and with whom, and when you really have lived a sufficiently useful life. After all, your "quality of life" really isn't good enough to justify any more resources being spent on you, you kids, or your relatives....think about it.

11/20/09 - 10:22

Really? While I agree that the health care system is broken, the current bill will not help the problem. Please explain how levying new taxes and imposing new regulations will cut costs in the system. Those uninsured people will simply be required to pay for mandatory health insurance, imposing another financial burden upon them. Do you think it is fair that they be forced to buy health insurance? What if the choice is heat, food, or clothing?
This is not health care reform, it is insurance reform, forced upon us by bureaucrats incapable of even balancing their own budget. If this reform is so great, then why is it being delayed until after the next election?