Burgess Meeting with President on Affordable Health Choices

U. S. Representative Michael C. Burgess
WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
1224 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
P: (202) 225-7772
F: (202) 225-2919

RE: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act & Meeting with the President

Dear Congressman Michael C. Burgess:

I recently read of your acceptance to meet with President Barack Obama about your concerns related to the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200). Please convey our well-wishes to the President and First Family.

If never we have agreed on anything, we have agreed on this:

FIRST: As far as medicine is concerned, Americans are ready for change.

You state: “The U.S. Congress must: (1) enact laws that provide a safety net for the poorest of the poor; (2) take less taxpayer dollars so they can be used to pay for the cost of a family's health coverage; and (3) provide new incentives for families and individuals to save for their health expenses… As the cost of medical care continues to increase, businesses are more and more reluctant to provide coverage for their employees.

Without national legislation, health costs will continue to climb, health insurance premiums will become more burdensome for employers and employees.

If ever so slowly, I believe we are moving toward a system where basic health care will be accessible to all, while retaining the option for individuals to access unlimited care – a modified version of the mixed public and private healthcare system we have now.

I would like to bring all parties to the table and send a bill to the President that addresses this issue.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

Congressman Michael C. Burgess represents Texas 26th District, a gerrymandered district where once our voices were heard, but are no longer heard.

Our congressman has a misperception of healthcare as a right or a privilege. If healthcare means extending the right to live, it is a constitutional right, insofar as we have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

The misperception comes in when the Congressman looks upon healthcare as a privilege. He states: “It is market-based healthcare that is and will be essential to maintaining the world-class ‘premium’ medicine that people travel across the globe in search of.” This premium medicine that people travel across the globe to receive in the United States consists of (1) screening for preventable diseases, (2) advanced technology like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized tomography (CT), and (3) heroic late-stage treatment measures.

This so-called culture of ‘premium’ medicine is based upon the book “Crisis of Abundance” by Dr. Arnold Kling.

MR. PRESIDENT:

I have assured my congressman that the “poorest of the poor”, for which he assumes to speaks, do not suffer from the “crisis of abundance”, and neither spoiled by “culture of ‘premium’ medicine.”

Remember, we are the Uninsured. We take what we can get. And, most of the time, it is charity care, at the expense of the County Hospital.

Congressman Burgess, to date, has held only two one-hour Town Hall meetings. On Saturday, August 8, he visited Denton, from 10 am to 11 am, and from 2:00 pm to 3 pm, he visited Gainesville.

These are communities of people who are already has health insurance. These are the ones with the “premium” healthcare expectations.

Since Sec. 102 of the Affordable Health Choices Act. Protects the choice to keep current coverage:

[Sec. 102(1)(B)(2) prohibits private insurers from changing terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing on or after the First Day of Y1. Therefore, it would be illegal for private insurers to raise the rates on old policies]

[Sec. 102(1)(B) (3) specifically states:

The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate, as specified by the Commissioner.]