BY THOMAS W. SINEX
I thought it appropriate for John Wilcox, Floyd County Democratic Party Chair, to publicly thank Rep. Baron Hill in The Tribune (Nov. 12, 2009) for his support of the House healthcare reform bill, in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic national leadership.
As a senior citizen currently enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan and strongly opposed to that bill, I found it worthy of comment (and potentially helpful for those who join me in that opposition) that he chose, in this moment of Democratic triumph, to join in the arrogance and outspoken contempt for those of us in the opposing camp that has long characterized the public utterances of Ms. Pelosi, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic Chairman, and Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader.
In his letter, Mr. Wilcox accused us of “lies and misrepresentations that have marked the other side of the debate” uttered in opposition to “true progress” in order to “preserve the status quo solely for political gain.”
This broadside is reminiscent of a widely publicized letter to the editors of USA Today of several months ago in which Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer questioned and disparaged the patriotism of those citizens who had exercised their rights by attempting to question their Members of Congress at August town hall meetings and by participating in various Tea Party demonstrations around the nation. Rep. Pelosi even went so far as to question the very sincerity of these concerned, even frightened, citizens, castigating the spontaneous movement as an “Astro-Turf” movement, rather than as the grass-roots movement it so obviously was.
Rep. Hill himself demonstrated the same arrogance and contempt for the opinions of those of us he supposedly represents in late August in one of the only two town hall meetings he deigned to attend during the month-long recess. After recognizing a young female Indiana University student, he brusquely interrupted her question by loudly proclaiming, “This is my meeting, and I will make the rules here.”
Those voters who missed that meeting will have the opportunity to view that particular exchange a number of times on TV next year as the election nears, I am certain.
That arrogance and contempt for the opposing opinions of those of us concerned and frightened by the extreme changes and overwhelming debt being foisted upon the nation continues. Witness the statement of former President Clinton in a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats several days ago, referring to us derisively as “tea-baggers.”
One final thought: The extreme arrogance and contempt for many of us which Mr. Wilcox shares with Ms. Pelosi and others of her ilk is baldly demonstrated on a daily basis by their obvious belief that many of us will swallow the most outrageous statements without any independent thoughtful evaluation of our own. As an example, witness Mr. Wilcox’s out-of-this-world statement that this healthcare reform bill, if enacted, “will improve Medicare for the nearly 113,000 beneficiaries living in [Hill’s Congressional] district.” When evaluated in light of other provisions in the bill, this statement absolutely violates common sense. The $522 billion reduction in Medicare and Medicaid that has been proposed would clearly and inevitably lead to a dramatic reduction in the services available to seniors under those programs. The termination of the Medicare Advantage program, which the President has characterized as a part of the “waste” which he intends to strip away with a $177 billion cut in funding, would leave 10.2 million seniors without any health insurance coverage. They would all have to re-enroll in Medicare and then select and purchase some sort of Medicare Supplement coverage.
The remaining $445 billion of the proposed $622 billion cut in Medicare and Medicaid expenditures would largely come from reductions in the fees to be paid medical providers, all of whom would remain bound to charge and receive no more than the government-approved fee for each service. The inevitable result would be an eventual and dramatic reduction in the number of physicians, nurses and other medical providers.
As 40 million plus additional potential patients would appear and the number of providers would decline, common sense dictates that supply could not possibly continue to meet demand. This result inevitably would spawn two consequences: rationing of care and resources and ever-increasing delays in receiving all manner of healthcare attention and treatment. As these inevitable consequences would develop and intensify, it seems obvious that seniors, as the most frequent recipients of medical and other healthcare, would be affected more severely than any other segment of society.
The foregoing is the simple, logical and straightforward explanation of the consequences for Medicare recipients that Pelosi, Hill, Wilcox and their ilk think the “tea-baggers” are too dense to formulate or understand. My personal expectation is that such arrogance, such pride, surely “goeth before a fall.”
Thomas W. Sinex is a Sellersburg resident.
