Heat rising on health care reform
November 5th, 2009 by Bret HayworthFederal health care reform talks have achieved critical mass, as the end of this week will be a key time to see whether reform moves forward. The U.S. House could vote on a measure Saturday, and today some local chapters of the American Association of Retired People are holding press conferences to talk about support for the House bill. That will happen in a few minutes in Des Moines with Iowa AARP talking about advocacy efforts.
On the flip side, at noon Republicans like Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will follow through with a press event called a “house call” on the east steps of the Capitol in Washington to beat back reform. Two days ago King and other reform critics called on Americans to “fill the streets of Washington and opposed the (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi health care bill. ”
“For liberals, this legislation is the crown jewel of their socialist agenda,” King said, since it “will place bureaucrats between patients and doctors,” and raise taxes on small businesses. Bachmann pitched the “house call” with, “Nothing scares members of Congress like freedom-loving Americans.”
With equal conviction he’s right on the issue, on Tuesday a Storm Lake newspaperman gave testimony to the Senate Health, Education, Health and Pensions Committee hearing on health insurance, as invited by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times spoke about how the newspaper has struggled to continue to provide health insurance to 12 employees as costs rise. He cited rates doubling (and then annually increasing by double digits) after an employee had a kidney transplant in 2005, and bemoaned an inability to change insurers because of employees with pre-existing conditions.
“The Storm Lake Times now pays nearly $50,000 per year for health insurance coverage. That’s almost as much as we pay for newsprint. Were it not for such high insurance costs we could add more employees and help to grow our local economy,” Cullen testified.
Cullen noted Buena Vista County families have an average household income of $36,000 and it costs about one-third of that amount to buy an annual private health care plan. Click here to see the 176-minute hearing, including the very last minute in which an incensed, arms-waving Cullen goes off prepared testimony to vent about insurance companies “screwing” Americans.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard a person pitch Steve King for president in 2012. Mere weeks after the 2008 election in which Barack Obama was selected as president, we at The Journal took a look at what names Northwest Iowans might see in the ‘12 race. (Yes, some readers said, too much, too soon.) That involved asking Republican Party chairpersons in many surrounding counties to list their top three picks for four years off. A county chairwoman was quick to put King’s name on her list.