Two Lynchburg business owners and Republican delegate-elect Scott Garrett blasted federal health care reform legislation Friday, saying the proposals would hurt the very people they are said to help.
They said House Bill 3200, which passed in November, would cause more unemployment, limit access to health care and change national culture for the worse.
Garrett, a retired surgeon and city council member, spoke with a home health care provider and a furniture maker in a panel discussion about the proposed public option health insurance plan. The event was organized by the Campaign for Responsible Health Reform and hosted by the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The forum was designed to get people to encourage Virginia’s senators to fight against the public option idea. Fewer than 10 local business owners attended.
Chamber president Rex Hammond said that the health care reform bill that passed the House of Representatives would impose a fine on businesses that do not offer health insurance to employees.
Furniture maker Thomas Johnson said that such a requirement would cause him and other business owners to re-think plans to hire more people. He would find a way to make money “without getting too many human beings involved,” he said. “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to work for the government.”
Tulane Patterson, founder of the home health care agency Generation Solutions, said the public plan would increase the costs of providing health care.
Patterson also said the plan would lead to health care rationing. “As a health care provider, I can almost assure you that if this passes carte blanche, the people who are not going to receive the health care are the people I serve, the seniors.”
Garrett said he worries that federal health care reform would limit access to treatment by causing doctors to want to retire earlier because of the hassles of dealing with government regulations.
Patterson and Johnson said that they are worried about the effect a public option plan could have on the nation’s culture. Johnson called it a step toward socialism. Patterson said it would strengthen an ideology that people should rely on the government instead of working.
Generation Solutions has 300 employees and needs more, but it has trouble finding new employees because many people do not want to work, he said. “We have among our unemployed workforce people who are motivated not to work,” he said. “We are creating a disincentive for some of these people, if we offer a health plan for everybody, where they will not need to work.”
Johnson said that the government needs to make it easier for businesses to hire employees and be profitable before trying to pay for health care reform.
“If you do (steps) one, two, three, then maybe the fourth will follow,” Johnson said. “But unfortunately we’re doing four before we do one.”
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