CFL Recess Rally: Health Care Question 4
From the Citizens for Liberty Town Hall and Recess Rally on Saturday August 22, this is the fourth question asked by the public concerning health care reform:
“I hear our president talking about his health care plan. Which plan is it? Is it HR 3200 or is it one of the Senate bills?”
Qusi al-Haj, West River Regional Director for Senator John Thune, answered first:
You know, it doesn’t really matter. What’s common between the Senate and the House is the public option. Which our interpretation of the public option is government run health care, so it doesn’t really matter what plan it is. There’s a lot of details, a lot of provisions. Our approach has been the following: whenever an issue is raised, whether it’s the end of life counseling, whether it’s the abortion issue, whether it’s the provisions that the public is concerned about, our tool is to introduce an amendment that is blocked, so when that amendment fails, it’s a clue to us that their intention in the bill is really to mask whatever provision is being discussed. So it doesn’t really matter, whether it’s the House or the Senate, there’s a great deal of details in both bills, but what’s in common between them is the public option.
Megan Scott Smith, Legislative Assistant to Senator Tim Johnson, answered next:
Firstly, when the president undertook this whole effort to address our health care system, and the expenses that we’re spending on it, personally and as a federal government, it was more of a laying out goals that he would like to see achieved in this effort. And that’s something Senator Johnson is committed to, is those goals of access, for affordable coverage, cutting the costs and reining in those costs so that we’re on a more sustainable trajectory. And then ensuring that people have access not just to coverage, this isn’t just about covering people, about making sure I have an insurance card, because a lot of people right now have insurance cards, they have coverage. But they’re finding out when they get sick and need to take that coverage, it’s not there for them. They’re being denied services, they’re being overcharged for some of these services, they’re not getting coverage for things because they had a pre-existing condition. So these are efforts that are the goals of Obama’s plan. Right now there is no Senate bill, and so I can’t say definitively that the Senate bill contains a public option. But I think that we all have the same goals, and those are what I just outlined.
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s Field Director Rick Hanson was present but did not come prepared to answer questions.
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