By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
Two Republican lawmakers from Missouri didn’t wait for President Barack Obama’s speech before assailing the Democratic health care plan that the president on Wednesday came to the state to support.
Before the president’s speech in St. Charles, U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond and U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt said in a telephone news conference from Washington that the measure now before Congress should be scrapped.
“The president thinks people don’t understand, and if he makes enough speeches, they’ll find out what a great thing it is,” said Blunt. “They do understand it; they don’t want it in the country, or in Missouri.”
Missouri’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Claire McCaskill, who accompanied Obama to the state, issued a statement praising the president’s efforts to help those who cannot get insurance and to make coverage more affordable.
“I don’t know whether health care reform will get done or not, but no one can quarrel with the president’s political courage in making the effort to have meaningful reform so that those people out there who don’t have insurance can get it, and those who have it are not priced out of the market,” she said.
Bond said the Democratic proposal, if enacted, would cut funding available for Medicare and would raise costs for private insurance coverage.
Bond and Blunt said the current plan is too costly and that Congress should start over, with a series of smaller steps to encourage competition among insurance carriers, to improve the portability of medical plans and to clamp down on medical malpractice lawsuits.
Legislation that would encourage competition across state lines “would go a long way,” Blunt said, in helping small businesses offer health insurance for their workers.
“People want two or three things improved, then to wait awhile and do two or three more,” Bond said. “They don’t want to take the greatest health care system in the world, throw it up in the air and see where it lands.”
The senator also praised the American health care system when he was asked why the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without some sort of national health care plan.
“Our quality is far superior, and Americans spent less time waiting for care,” he said.
Both Republicans acknowledged that many Americans have no health care coverage but said coverage via Medicare would be reduced under the president’s plan.
“And it would shift the Medicaid burden to states,” Bond said.
Blunt, who was a member of the House leadership when Republicans held the majority, said the GOP has passed some health reform measures and has tried to pass others.
“There are things we’ve tried to do, like association health plans and medical liability reform,” he said. “And we passed health savings accounts and the ‘welcome to Medicare’ physical.”
Blunt questioned the amount of savings through catching Medicare fraud that the administration says will be used to finance the program.
“If we can find it, we ought to be using it right now to save Medicare, which is going to be in trouble over the next two or three years,” he said.
Race shaping up
Kit Bond is retiring this year after 24 years in the Senate. Roy Blunt is considered the front-runner, among Republicans, seeking to replace him. His likely Democratic opponent is Robin Carnahan, now secretary of state.
