U.S. CONGRESSMAN BILL JOHNSON Proudly Representing Eastern and Southeastern Ohio

By Richard Sberna
East Liverpool Review
Published May 2, 2012

"Health care is on everybody's minds," Rep. Bill Johnson said during a visit to the Therapy Center at the Calcutta YMCA on Tuesday afternoon. It was obviously on Johnson's mind during an informal session when he spoke with staff members at the center.

"I'm fighting very, very hard to make sure that America continues to have the number one, top-quality health system in the world," Johnson said, asserting that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010 moves the country in the opposite direction.

Johnson acknowledged that certain parts of the law, such as provisions that prohibit denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and that allow young adults to remain on their parents' coverage until age 26, are worthwhile. "Anytime you put trillions of dollars into something, you're going to get some good out of it," he said.

However, Johnson decried the funding of the law, which he said would cut $500 billion from Medicare, and its administration by the proposed Independent Payment Advisory Board, what he called a "15-member panel of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., that are going to determine what kind of services we get, who can get what kinds of tests run." He also stated that the law, known also as Obamacare, is unconstitutional in its mandate that all Americans have some form of health insurance.

According to Johnson, the negative affects of the law can already be seen, with one in three health care providers already restricting the number of Medicare patients. He stated that, with approximately10,000 baby boomers becoming eligible for Medicare every days, the program will near bankruptcy within the next several years, forcing the Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration care. "They're going to have no choice but to begin choosing winners and losers about who can get what care and who can't."

Johnson asserted that, for those reasons and others, the majority of Americans oppose the law and want an alternative plan to be debated and implemented.

"There's a cost to providing health care," he said. "We can lower those costs with competition, with tort reform to lower malpractice insurance, and keeping the Federal government's hand out of the till where Medicare is concerned."