U.S. Representative Emerson: It’s Time To Put People First
Posted By: Jo Ann Emerson 
Date Posted: October 29th, 2009 Category: Health Care
Health care reform has gripped the Congress for the better part of the year now, and we are finally getting to the core of this debate: cost. Without an affordable system of health care, we’ll forever have problems with access.
As the U.S. Representative from Southern Missouri, I see the challenges posed to patients and providers alike in our health care system every day. However, the proposals on the table in Congress are notable not for what they propose but for what they lack. Because of the raw politicization of the health care debate, most of the meaningful changes in these bills would complicate and corrupt the doctor-patient relationship rather than drive quality solutions that will make our excellent system of care more affordable for everyone.
It’s an unfortunate, frustrating impasse when, at the same time, too many good, bipartisan proposals to lower costs have been ignored – even compromises I have worked for like eliminating international barriers to market access for U.S. consumers, speeding new generic drugs to market, promoting comparative effectiveness research and better decision-making tools for doctors and their patients.
In rural areas, special consideration should also be granted to the challenges of living in a small town without a single primary care physician, or 300 miles from the nearest cancer treatment center. But today’s proposals also ignore a serious circumstance created by introducing 35 to 40 million new patients into our system of care: making sure there are enough doctors, nurses, medical technicians and professionals to treat everyone. In Southern Missouri, our health care system is severely short-staffed. We need to be able to train more men and women for health care careers, and we need to have the tools to enable them to serve the communities they grew up in and to which they want to return.
Folks I represent back home in Missouri want improvements in health care because it’s often the biggest expense in their family budget. It’s time we consider them first in this debate – the same way our doctors do – before special interests, independent of political beliefs, and with a desire to cure what ails them.
There is much members of Congress agree on, and a consensus bill would address the costs of care and prescription drugs first. We can start saving public and taxpayer money today, and we can guarantee that benefits through the Medicare and Medicaid programs will not be cut. A logical place to start was detailed on the television news-magazine “60 Minutes” last weekend: there is an estimated $60 billion in waste, fraud and abuse to be found and cut out of these programs.
The idea of thrift isn’t new to American families, but we also need to impress it on the federal government. Legislation that was promised to be deficit-neutral yet weighs in at a whopping $1 trillion just goes to show we have a lot more work to do. I hope my colleagues will buckle down and do it.