Wittman: Congress should start fresh on health care plan

NEWPORT NEWS

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman wasted no time Monday reminding hundreds of constituents what he thinks of a massive House bill to overhaul health care.

The Republican pointed to a 6-inch-thick copy of HR 3200 on a chair next to him on the stage and said it “should be put in the recycling bin.”

His remark was greeted with the first of many loud rounds of applause at the town hall meeting, the first of its kind on the topic in Hampton Roads.

Wittman’s Democratic colleague Bobby Scott will hold a similar meeting at 7 tonight at the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News.

The crowd clapped as other speakers railed against the Democrats’ health care plan, complained of high prices of Medicare, criticized the administration of President Barack Obama and expressed disgust with general expansion of the federal government.

Emotions were strong and the crowd boisterous, but Wittman had to chide only one heckler. He also quieted the audience when a handful of speakers rose to defend the House’s health care proposal. It calls for a government plan to compete with private insurers as a way to lower prices and for new taxes to help provide health benefits to the poor.

The gathering in the Ferguson Center for the Arts at Christopher Newport University drew a capacity crowd of 440 inside the theater and 150 to 200 listening on a public address system in the lobby.

A standing ovation came when Ray Nations, who operates a tax service in Hampton, stepped to the microphone to say he’s “violently opposed to any government intrusion in our lives.”

Another man rose in the balcony, waving a copy of the Constitution and asked Wittman: “Where in here is the authorization from Congress to regulate our health care?”

The congressman said he agreed that questions about the Constitution “absolutely need to be part of the debate, and they’re a healthy part of the debate.”

Wittman also noted that while the Constitution doesn’t mention health care, “it doesn’t mean we can’t address this by reducing cost.”

Craig Carter, a Newport News pastor and lobbyist for the Virginia Morticians Association, told Wittman that it doesn’t make sense for people to say they don’t trust Washington to handle issues like health care.

We are the government, he said. “To say we can’t trust the government means we can’t trust ourselves.”

Wittman said before the meeting began that he was interested in hearing not just about problems .

“I want to make sure I have the whole picture,” he said. “We also have to listen to people’s ideas of how to fix the problem.”

Wittman has said he opposes a government health insurance plan because it would drive private insurers out of business. He also has said he wants make sure everyone can keep their doctors under any reform plan.

“We want to make sure that medical decisions are made by patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats,” he said at the forum.

Limits on malpractice lawsuits – known as tort reform – also need to be included in any legislation, he said.

Wittman repeatedly stated that he believes the best solution when Congress meets again on Sept. 8 is for legislators to “take out a blank sheet of paper” and begin to craft a new health care bill that is agreeable to Democrats and Republicans. There should be a way to reduce health costs and provide coverage for uninsured people without dramatically changing the system for everyone, he said.

One woman asked if Wittman felt there was any chance that a major health care bill could be approved during the current session of Congress,

“I think there are people on both sides of the issue who realize the magnitude of the problem,” Wittman said. “We need to find ideas we have in common.”

Health costs are rising at a dangerously rapid rate, he said.

“I think the path that we’re on is unsustainable,” he said.

 Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com