Grassley sees Iowans scared
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Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said the town hall meetings he’s attended over the last several months have shown him one recurring fact: People in Iowa are scared and upset about what’s going on in the Federal government these days.
“You got the idea they were anrgy,” he said, “but they weren’t that way in my town meetings. They were scared. They think we’ve gone bananas and put a $1.5 Trillion (health care) bill on top of all these other things that’s happening, plus the nationalization of it.”
Some of those feelings surfaced Thursday evening when Grassley hosted a town hall-style meeting at Iowa Telecom. The Republican senator answered questions and took comments from several dozen Iowa Telecom employees in the former Maytag innovation center. Health care reform overwhelmingly was choice topic of discussion. The House of Representatives passed a health care reform bill on Saturday and the Senate will likely vote on the issue soon.
Grassley does not favor the bill in its current form and he raised concerns about the propsect of health care rationing and socialized medicine.
One member of the audience wondered how a government run insurance option would help reduce costs when the cost of practicing medicine would remain the same.
“All it is is shuffling. The costs are going to stay the same right? The doctors need to pay their mortages ... They’re going to get their money,” he said.
Grassley said the push for the public option isn’t necessarily to save money, but a push by a group of politicians to get a single-payer, Canadian-style, government run system.
“There’s a large share of the members of congress ... that really eventually want the government to take over all of health care,” he said.
But those favoring a Canadian style don’t necessarily realize that some Canadians come to this country for medical care to supplement their system. The United States wouldn’t have that option, Grassley noted.
“Canadians brag about having a single payer government run system, but they’ve really got two systems and the second is the United States of America,” he said, “but when we have a government run system are we going to be able to got to Mexico to get ours? I don’t think we’re ready for that.”
Following the public meeting, Grassley said there were several things he’d like to see in a proposed health care bill before he would support it.
He wants to see the selling of insurance across state lines, the removal of the public option and the removal of the individual insurance mandate.
“This is the first time in the 225-year history of our country that the Federal government said you had to buy anything. If you don’t buy health insurance you have to pay $1,500 to the IRS every year.”
Following the ever changing bill is a challenge and has caused some members of the media and late-night talk show hosts to wonder if anyone in Washington is actually reading the nearly 2,000 page bill.
“We’ll be able to read it, but the problem is understanding it,” Grassley said, noting he has lawyers on his staff to help him analyze the bill and how it changes.
Finally, Grassley noted that he believes his constituents are right to be scared with what they see coming out of Washington.
“Because this debt that’s piling up could bring down our economy,” he said. “Don’t forget just four years ago Argentina repudiated their debt. That would ruin the United States’ reputation and just drive up interest rates tremendously. I don’t think we’ll repudiate debt, but I think we’ll have high interest rates and that will be very costly.”
