Berg enrolls in federal health care
Representative voted to repeal reform lawGRAND FORKS – Rep. Rick Berg, R-N.D., has accepted the government-sponsored health care benefits offered to members of Congress – despite co-sponsoring a bill that would repeal the year-old health care reform legislation that he said represents a “government takeover of health care.”
By: Ryan Johnson, Forum Communications Co., INFORUM
GRAND FORKS – Rep. Rick Berg, R-N.D., has accepted the government-sponsored health care benefits offered to members of Congress – despite co-sponsoring a bill that would repeal the year-old health care reform legislation that he said represents a “government takeover of health care.”
Joe Aronson, executive director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, said it’s “absolutely hypocritical” because Berg spent much of his campaign for the U.S. House criticizing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“There’s been a great effort by the people who support health care reform to ask members of Congress who don’t feel that people should be getting greater access to health insurance to forgo the health insurance that we, the taxpayers, provide for them,” Aronson said.
Berg said it’s not hypocritical to accept the benefits just because he supports the fight to repeal health care reform.
“Most employers provide health care,” he said. “That’s the way I look at it. This is employer-provided health care.”
Don Canton, a spokesman for Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said Hoeven also is enrolled in the congressional health care plan.
Berg said the federal benefits are “certainly not a Cadillac plan,” referring to the nickname for high-cost health insurance plans. He said it’s just him, not his entire family, that’s now covered under the federal plan.
But Aronson said Berg’s belief that the federal benefits are similar to employer-provided coverage doesn’t “absolve” him of voting for the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, which passed the House by a 245-189 vote last Wednesday.
“I think it demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a lot of small-business people go through to try to provide their employees with health care,” he said. “A large part of what this reform bill is trying to do is help employers provide health care to their employees.
In his statement to the House before the repeal bill came up for a vote, Berg said one of his top concerns after the Affordable Care Act was passed was “how it puts the government between patients and their doctors.”
“We need to repeal this law and put health care decisions back in the hands of patients and their doctors,” he told lawmakers. “I urge my colleagues to support repealing this legislation and replacing it with meaningful health care reform.”
But Aronson said the repeal legislation is “an anti-North Dakota bill” because the reform package will benefit 150,000 residents in the state who currently don’t have health insurance.
He said the reform also would help about three-quarters of the state’s small businesses to offer health insurance to their employees and allow thousands of young adults to remain under their parents’ coverage until age of 26.
“When you take this bill as a whole, there are just so many good things in it,” he said.
The repeal bill has cleared the House, where Republicans are the majority party following last November’s elections. But it would next have to be taken up and passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that if the repeal bill makes it to the Senate, he wants Republicans to vote up or down on individual provisions of the reform package – which would require lawmakers to vote on popular parts of the law.
Berg said he’s “disappointed” that Democrats have pledged to try to prevent the bill from coming up in the Senate, especially after the repeal bill easily cleared the House.
“I’m hopeful that the people in America let their wishes be known to the Senate,” he said. “I think they should take the whole thing and vote on it, up or down, and I’m hopeful it would then go to the president.”
Canton said Hoeven believes the repeal bill will come up for a vote in the Senate and that Hoeven plans to vote for the repeal, “but it is unlikely to pass.”
“At that point, we will need to try to fix the legislation with measures like tort reform, allowing competition among health insurance providers across state lines, and reform of Medicare reimbursement to make health care more affordable and accessible to everyone,” Canton said.
Johnson writes for the Grand Forks Herald
Tags: rick berg, federal health care, health care reform, health care, north dakota, berg, politics, news
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