Tuesday’s panel featured (L to R): Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American Action Forum; Diana Fuchtgott-Roth, Manhattan Institute; Nina Owcharenko, Heritage Foundation; and Steven Duffield, Crossroads GPS. (Malena Caruso / Medill News Service)
WASHINGTON — If Tuesday’s conservative American Action Network news
conference had been a fight on the school playground, Obamacare would be
yelling, “Uncle!”
Conservative lawmakers, think tanks and policy analysts made clear their
opposition to the Affordable Care Act, affectionately dubbed Obamacare, at the
National Press Club event.
The news conference, hosted by American Action Network and Crossroads
GRP, comes on the eve of the House vote Wednesday on
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s “Repeal Obamacare Act.” He introduced
the bill just hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the health care law was
constitutional.
“Politicians don’t know what’s best for patients. It is doctors, health care
professionals and families who know what’s best for patients,” said Georgia Rep.
Thomas Price, a Republican who has 20 years of experience as an orthopedic
surgeon.
It was noted the American Medical Association and the American College of
Physicians support the universal health care law.
“Well, you just need to ask doctors in the field, working every day, and they don’t
support the law,” Price responded.
Not that he was saying doctors in the AMA or the ACP don’t see patients, of
course.
While the Cantor repeal vote is happening on Wednesday, the Senate
Committee on Finance will hold a hearing with testimony from AMA President-
Elect Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven concerning the Medicare physician payments.
The nation’s largest physician organization released a statement after the
Supreme Court ruled the law was constitutional, saying it waspleased with the
decision.
“The American Medical Association has long supported health insurance
coverage for all, and we are pleased that this decision means millions of
Americans can look forward to the coverage they need to get healthy and stay
healthy,” according to a statement from current AMA President Dr. Jeremy A.
Lazarus.
But the AMA positions didn’t faze the speakers at Tuesday’s National Press Club
event.
“The administration promised to lower the cost of health care and have
more people insured. Right now that’s on a crumbling foundation,” said Nina
Owcharenko of The Heritage Foundation.
Owcharenko and others hammered on their view that the health care law’s fee
on those who choose not to obtain health insurance is new “tax,” not simply
a “penalty” as the left calls it, and that it will hurt small businesses and add to the
unemployment rate.
“Employers could lay off full-time workers and just hire part-time workers to avoid
the $2,000 per worker penalty for not providing health insurance approved by the
government,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute.
Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner asserted that 80 percent of
physicians are considering leaving their practices because of the cost they would
have to bear with the expansion of one of the largest entitlement programs in the
U.S. Medicare.
The panelists were passionate that health insurance must be run like all other
types of insurance Americans buy.
“When someone loses their job, you don’t hear them say, ‘Oh no I’m going to
lose my car because now I won’t have car insurance’ or ‘I’m going to lose my
house because I don’t have homeowners insurance now,’” said Furchtgott-Roth.
They said that health insurance should be something Americans can carry with
them throughout their life, changing it whenever they want and having full control
over their health care.
Or like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Network,
said, “You should be able to plug it in wherever you go, like your 401K. Taking it
from job to job.”
At the end of the anti-Obama health law event, Holtz-Eakin offered advice to end
the debate on health care: “Whatever happens, this has to be a bipartisan reform
or we will be having panels like this every four years.”