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WINSTED — Congress will pass a new health-care reform bill by Thanksgiving, according to United States Rep. John Larson (D-1).
Larson held a special health-care forum Sunday, Oct. 25, at Northwestern Connecticut Community College.
During the talk, which also featured a panel of local health-care professionals, Larson said comprehensive reform of the nation’s health-care system is “long overdue.”
“We don’t have the luxury to maintain the status quo, because disease doesn’t know boundaries,” he said.
Currently, both the House and Senate are working to finalize separate health-care reform bills before bringing them to each chambers’ members for a vote.
If and when both bills are passed, the two versions will be reconciled by a special joint committee into one final congressional bill before it goes President Barack Obama for his signature.
Larson said he is confident that Congress will not only have a bill on the president’s desk before the end of November, but that it will also include a government-sponsored public option.
“I am a strong proponent for a robust public option on health care,” the congressman said, adding that the option — if included in the final bill — would help reduce health-care costs.
“It promotes competition,” he said.
Larson said he supports the public option over a single-payer health-care system because the latter would prove to be too costly to implement at this time.
“That creates a hurdle that cannot be passed,” he said, adding that Americans would be “better served” by the public option.
Panel member Dr. William Handelman, a kidney specialist with Charlotte Hungerford Hospital and the president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, said most physicians support health-care reform.
“The majority of doctors are in favor of having universal health care in this country,” Handelman said.
Another panel member, Brenda Kelley, the director of the Connecticut chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons, said while her organization has yet to endorse a particular proposal regarding health-care reform, AARP does believe that “all Americans deserve quality, affordable health care.”
In addition, Kelley said the organization has become increasingly concerned about the growing lack of health-care coverage for those aged 50 to 64.
“They are the ones experiencing tremendous difficulty having their health-care needs met,” she said. “This is a huge problem.”
Larson, who is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said the group has spent some 82 hours discussing and debating the health-care reform bill.
“That’s a lot,” he said.
He repeated, however, that he is confident Congress can pass a bill before the end of the year.
“Now is the opportunity,” Larson said. “And it is in everybody’s interest to make this happen.”
© Copyright 2009 by TCExtra.com
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