Grassley Says Trustees' Report Makes Case Against Government-Run Plan
By John Amick
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, cited a report released yesterday that predicted a shorter lifespan for the Social Security and Medicare systems than previously believed in saying he didn't believe the United States is ready for an additional government-run health plan.
The Des Moines Register today reported Grassley's comments.
"Medicare's fiscal problems underscore how it doesn't make sense to create a government-run health insurance plan, which is very much a controversial part of our health-care reform debate. ... We can't afford the public plan we already have and if we create a government-run health-care plan that's unaffordable and unsustainable, it isn't going to be any good for anyone."
The report predicted that Social Security will cease to provide full benefits by 2037, four years earlier than expected, and that Medicare has eight years remaining before the program will cease to be able to pay elderly patients' hospital bills in full.
President Obama hosted Grassley and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, meeting last week as part of the ongoing effort to reform health-care in America. That meeting was followed by Obama's summit with House Democratic leaders on health reform today.
By
Paul Volpe
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May 13, 2009; 2:23 PM ET
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Posted by: hhodges1 | May 14, 2009 7:57 AM | Report abuse
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Senator Grassley, Senator Baucus and the rest of those individuals who are spreading the falsehoods about the feasibility of government supported health care simply show their arrogance and disdain for the very people who elected them. It has been proven time and time again that single payer health care as detailed in the HR676 legislation will not only provide excellent access to health care for all Americans,it will significantly reduce the overall cost of health care for our nation as a whole. We, pay the highest rate for health care of any nation in the world, yet our health care outcomes are among the lowest. Senator Baucus and the Senators who made up his "health care reform roundtable" showed such a massive disdain for the people of the United States that I am truly ashamed of our US Senate that such arrogance was not met with harsh recrimination. Until this nation begins to understand that health care is NOT a product and the for profit greed hogs of the health care INDUSTRY have no business in health care, we will be relegated to the lowest rung on healh care outcomes. People need to realize that insurance companies are directly responsible for the high cost of health care in this country. They bring nothing of value to the delivery of health care, only take from you and me, hard earned money that would be much better spent in a universal health care system with reimbursement coming from a single source, the US Social Security Administration's CMS. As long as people like Grassley, Baucus and others who care more for their health care industry benefactors than they do for the very people who elect them, this nation will always be far in the back of the field of countries health care outcomes. Shame on us.
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