Posted on 08/13/2009 1:58:21 PM PDT by WVPatriot
Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding comprehensive health care reform. I understand how important this issue is to you, as it is to me, and I am grateful you have been in touch about it.
When I first began my career in public service, I learned a valuable lesson: health care is a right and should not merely be a privilege. Today, it is an undeniable fact that thousands of families in our state carry the burden of failed health care policies and unmet promises. Roughly 17 percent of West Virginians have decided at one point or another not to visit a doctor because they could not afford it. More than 75 percent of people who cited medical expenses in their bankruptcy claims actually had health insurance, and most of them had jobs. How is this possible in a country as bountiful as ours? This is a question that has been left unanswered for far too long. With more than 45 million uninsured Americans, I believe more strongly than ever that we must not lose sight of the moral imperative to extend health care coverage that is affordable and meaningful to every American.
Right now, I believe that we are at a turning point - not just in Congress - but in West Virginia and across the country. We have a profound opportunity to fix a broken system and make life better for millions of Americans. As part of his Fiscal Year 2010 (FY10) budget request to Congress, President Obama proposed $950 billion in savings to pay for comprehensive health care reform. No President in history has made such a sizable funding commitment to health care in an annual budget. Now, it is up to Congress to continue its work on the details of reform, so that we can submit a comprehensive plan to the President this year. We cannot afford to wait.
There are real people in West Virginia with real lives hanging in the balance. So many individuals in our communities feel alone in their struggles within this broken system, and just one serious illness threatens to send their entire world tumbling down. These are people we know: a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter, a mom or a dad, a church member or a co-worker. The growing and deeply felt insecurity of being one step removed from disaster runs like a common thread throughout our entire health care system. It is this experience that has led me to embrace three straightforward principles which guide every decision I make in Washington on the subject of health care - availability, affordability, and accountability.
First, I believe health coverage should always be available, whether it is private coverage or public programs, so that everyone can enroll. This is the basic concept of universal coverage I have always believed in. Our current system has so many gaps that millions go without coverage - including 250,000 people who are uninsured in West Virginia. Some are chronically uninsured, some from a job loss, some are students, and some have hit the ceiling on the amount of coverage their insurance provides. Recent data shows that over one-third of Americans have either experienced gaps in their insurance or relied on public programs for part of their coverage. As many as one in five uninsured Americans have no coverage at all because they have changed or lost their job. That is simply unacceptable.
In order to finally make health care available to all, we should continue the tax-exemption for employer-provided health care, provide universal coverage to kids, and allow retirees between ages 55 and 64 to buy into Medicare. We should also expand Medicaid for those who need it, help small businesses provide health benefits to their employees, and finally create a long-term care program in this country.
Second, health coverage also must be affordable, so that individuals, families, and small businesses can handle the costs of coverage. Americans are forced to spend more and more of their income on health care each year. And, those with health insurance are often not protected from even higher costs in the face of severe illness. This has to stop and there are several serious proposals under consideration for increasing health care affordability and reducing costs - for families and for the system as a whole. The first of these is a public health insurance option. As the original author of the Consumers Health Care Act (S. 1278) in the Senate, I want to be clear that the public option is voluntary, and it is an option. It would simply guarantee that there is at least one health insurance plan out there that ordinary Americans can afford and can count on even when they get sick. It is stable and it is affordable, and it actually saves money in the federal budget by acting as a counterweight to profit-driven insurance companies.
Cost savings are also possible in Medicare. By this, I do not mean charging seniors more for less. That is not a policy I would ever support. The proposal I have been working on would prevent Medicare from going broke, as it is on track to do by 2017. It would eliminate the special interests and the politicians from the process of determining Medicare payment, and instead allow independent experts to make the best decisions about how much we should pay health care providers. Gradually, these experts will carefully discipline this essential part of our health care safety net, and do so without sacrificing access to necessary care for our seniors and individuals with disabilities.
Third, health coverage must be accountable, which means the insurance you buy today will be there when you need it tomorrow. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I have been investigating the insurance industry and uncovering some incredibly disturbing facts about the deceptive practices insurance companies use. In order to maximize their profits, insurance companies are discriminating against people with pre-existing health conditions, hiding onerous caps on coverage in legalistic fine print, cutting off small businesses when someone who works there gets ill, and systematically overcharging for co-payments. As a result, many middle-class and working families, who have paid their premiums faithfully for years, abruptly find they are dumped from their insurance and have no protection against the financial ruin they worked so hard to prevent.
It is clear that the insurance industry needs to be reined in. So far, it looks like all sides agree on the importance of new insurance rules as part of health reform, which will go a long way toward treating hard-working Americans with dignity and basic fairness.
I refuse to believe that a better health care system is not possible. It is, and I am going to continue to fight for comprehensive health reform every single day. I will have your thoughts and experiences clearly in mind as Congress moves forward in enacting meaningful and comprehensive health care reform.
Thank you again for writing. It is always good to hear from my fellow West Virginians about matters of importance. Best wishes.
With Warm Regards,
Jay Rockefeller
A leftist thug like you got elected in WVA because you BOUGHT your way into office. Please don’t pontificate to boot!
May you rot in hell sir.
It wasn't long ago that any politician that said this was considered a kook.
That was an email letter I received from Jay Rockefeller.
“When I first began my career in public service, I learned a valuable lesson: health care is a right and should not merely be a privilege.”
Life, liberty and the complete cradle to grave entitlement program?
One of the wealthiest crap-weasels in the Senate, who could not have gotten himself elected dog-catcher if it weren’t for the money his great-grandfather accumulated for him. And even then, he had to move to West Virginia to do it.
Health care is a right,
food is a right,
clothing is a right,
education is a right,
entertainment is a right,
housing is a right,
transportation is a right,
after all,
what’s left?
The only failed health care policies are the ones run by the government. 33 Trillion in unfunded mandate. Yup, that’s Medicare. Nice job congress. So like Obama said shut the hell up.
“health care is a right”
I saw the one townhall post where a political newb stuck it to Arlen Specter with an impassioned plea to defend the Constitution. Specter looked like a fool.
Is it any wonder that otherwise rational people are blowing their lids at these events? We need to keep getting after these morons; there is no “right to healthcare” provided for in the Constitution.
This is a place where I believe that conservatives can make some hay with mods, indies and libertarians. We need to talk it up when we get in mixed groups and punch an even bigger hole in the Dear Leader’s approval rating. He has to become political posison before these socialist pigs in the legislature vote against him and his awful policies.
He was a young liberal idealist who went to West Virginia years ago as a VISTA volunteer. He stayed and decided to spend some of his inherited money to run for the Senate. He’s been re-elected a few times.
Don’t know how West Va. people feel about this health care “reform”, but he could lose supporters if he votes for the cap and tax bill. That bill would hit hard at a big coal producing state such as West Virginia.
Just wonder if he votes the liberal line if he will keep getting re-elected.
I wonder if he has enough money that he can buy re-election in a relatively small population state such as West Va.
Pass the Pepto-Bismol.
Jay Rockefellar is an arrogant p.o.s.
It’s a shame that the WV GOP is so lame that it cannot field decent candidates. They’re too busy feuding with each other.
“When I was first made aware of the many, many millions in my trust fund, I realized it was my right to be a Senator-For-Life from whatever state my family had a ‘summer cottage’ or weekend ‘hunting lodge.’”
For liberal scumbags;
access to porn is a right,
using tax dollars of other Americans to purchase a car that you can't afford is a right,
snitching on your neighbor because he doesn't share your political ideology is a right,
killing fully developed and completely viable human beings before birth is a right,
killing “unproductive and noncontributing” members of society is a right,
access to mind altering drugs is a right,
voting privileges for illegals and criminals is a right,
people of the same sex being married to each other is a right,
anything that can assist the Democrats in tearing down our cultural values of common decency is a right and anything that is fundamentally good or “right” is now wrong!
When is this dirt bag up for re-election ?
I hope he will be looking for a new job soon.
If Health care is a “Right” why do we have to pay for it then?
Health care is a commodity provided by highly trained and skilled, licensed professionals, the same as legal services are; therefore, quality legal services are also a right, and should not be a privilege. Same for REPRESENTATION...and "high quality' should not be left to the ego of the "provider" to define.
What a pants load. NOTHING that requires WORK/PAYMENT is a "right".
Not a word on the billions being wasted by doctors for unnecessary tests to avoid lawsuits. Nothing on tort reform, when WV was a state where a woman could not have a baby because all the obstetricians had left when the malpractice insurance premiums became too high. This guy always struck me as a fraud, now he proved it.
http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2005/obgyn.htm
“Malpractice insurance premiums vary widely from state to state. Florida is the highest-premium state, with an average 2004 premium of more than $195,000, followed by Nevada, Michigan, the District of Columbia, Ohio, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois and New York.”
Healthcare is NOT a fundamental right.
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