Kingston fields questions about healthcare at Town Hall Friday

Let’s remember how big health care is in the United States of America,“ Congressman Jack Kingston told a large crowd Friday at a town hall held at Armstrong Atlantic State University.  “Millions of decision are made each year, where you’re going to buy your insurance, what claims are paid.“

Kingston told the crowd we all tend to see health care reform from our own experience. “And that’s what makes it all so hard,“ he said.

First, Kingston told the crowd that the bill proposed this week in the House is still “too big.“  He agrees there are two problems, access to healthcare and affordability.  Kingston favors nationwide insurance pools that he says would provide more competition.  But he says many people don’t want what he calls government intrusion.

He told the crowd a story about meeting a woman who was working at Wal-Mart.  The woman told him she was working to pay for health insurance for herself and her husband and that she’d been advised that if she quit, she would be eligible for several government programs.  “But this woman told me she wanted to pay her own way,“ Kingston told the audience. “to me, that’s the person we need to be helping, and all the millions like her who are falling through the cracks.  But
I also feel very strongly that if the kitchen sink is leaking, you fix the sink you don’t take a whole wrecking ball to the kitchen.“

As Town Halls go, this one was not as raucous as some we’ve seen in other parts of the country although there were quite a few moments.  One man got a loud round of applause when he said he didn’t “hear anybody talking about the constitutionality of any of this mess .“

Another man told Kingston he was concerned his premiums would go up.  “I’m in a good pool that keeps my premium down because of living a good life. I’m already paying $24,000 a year for premiums for myself and my wife.  I don’t want to pay $50,000,“ he said.

Another man who said he was an insurance broker agreed that reforms may be needed. But he also said that providing insurance for pre-existing conditions would be “incredibly expensive.“

Most of those who asked questions indicated they did not support any kind of government option in any health reform plan.  But one woman Alice Barnes, said she did favor a public option.  “My 30 year old granddaughter died of pancreatic cancer.  She was diagnosed three months after she lost her job and her health insurance,“ she told the crowd.

Barnes told me later she thinks the healthcare debate is not just about money but about morality in this country.  “It is a moral issue to me and I think it should be to everyone, it’s about people dying who don’t have to die.“

Kingston told one man who said President Obama was finally sticking up for him that “80 percent of people are satisfied with what they have.“

A local physician, Dr. Wayne Woodbury, said it’s not so much healthcare reform that’s needed, but insurance reform.  “This bill has to have the ability for people to purchase insurance and to carry it with them so that if they lose their job or if they’re fired that they can still afford that insurance.“

“We should have it so that we can compete for insurance,“ Woodbury said.  “We do it for car insurance and it seems to be working. Right now I pay over 7,000 a month for health insurance for my employees and myself, that’s an extraordinary amount of money. “

Dr. Woodbury also said he doesn’t favor a public option per se.  “The problem with the public option usually comes with government controls.  And one of the things that I’ve found is that government puts a lot of stipulations and I have to follow a protocol set up for somebody.  I think it takes away from me and the patient.“

As far as the uninsured, Kingston told the crowd that some people are choosing not to buy insurance when he believes they can afford to buy it. “There are about ten million people who have a household income of about $66,000 a year who choose not to buy it and then there are about five million who are ages 19 to 34 , healthy no children but they chosen not to buy insurance either,“ Kingston says.  “ I think there are certainly affordability issues,  but there are people who can afford it who’ve chosen not to.“

Kingston told us that “you can see from this health care town meeting that there are a lot of emotions and that’s just similar to all over America so we’ve got to get through this listening period. And I think maybe the president has tried to bypass the listening period and maybe under estimated this as an issue.  I think the time now is to go back and listen to our constituents and then go back to Washington and say okay what can we find in common and I believe we can do it.“