In December 2008, my wife and I were concerned with the progress our son, Ethan, was making with his speech. Most of his peers were significantly more advanced, so we set up an evaluation with Child Development Services in Lewiston. The evaluation was thorough and they determined Ethan needed speech therapy due to a delay in his natural advancement.
We were told that the set of evaluations would be valid only until Ethan turned 3, only a few months away. We were lucky to find a wonderful speech therapist and even more lucky that she was on the “approved” list by the state. She worked with our son for four months, making great headway, before she told us that for “financial reasons” she would be leaving the field to enter a different line of work.
Next, a CDS administrator informed us about guidelines set forth in “the book” that regulated how much time Ethan could spend in therapy. As parents, we just wanted them to do what was best for our son and what would get him to where he needed to be. But CDS would only follow the guidelines set forth in “the book” and did not explore other options such as vision and fine motor skills, which are related to speech delay.
Ultimately, we decided to go through our insurance and discovered that our son has biocular vision, as well as other sensory delays in his ability to execute fine motor skills functions, which combined are a leading cause of his speech regression.
Ethan is going to be fine, but I cringe to think of the associated problems that my son would face if his care was predetermined based on a rigid set of policies. Health care and government bureaucracy does not work.
Under the current health care bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, my son’s story will become the norm in how people will be treated in America.
This expensive $1.5 trillion government power grab takes important health care decisions out of the hands of patients and doctors and gives them to government bureaucrats, where rules are rigidly applied without any consideration for the individual.
Supporters claim that if you like your current coverage, you can keep it. This is deceptive. You can keep your current plan but if you leave your job you will be mandated to take the public option because the House bill makes it illegal for private insurance carriers to write new individual policies.
The bill adds to the ever-growing regulations and red tape that already burden small-business owners. Employers would be mandated to provide insurance. But the federal government would set minimum standards under a Health Insurance Exchange and the Department of Health and Human Services would dictate an “essential benefits package” including mandated coverage. All this does is add additional costs to the bottom line of businesses, which are already struggling to survive. The end result is a loss of even more jobs in Maine as companies look to save on costs.
The bill creates a doctor shortage. The House bill caps payments to doctors at the Medicare rate plus 5 percent. Government reimbursement rates are so low that many private practices don’t take new Medicare patients. The government-controlled payment plan will force many doctors to leave practice and discourage talented young people from entering the medical profession.
In short, this is not just a bad bill; it’s the wrong approach for America.
So why is Congress rushing to pass this health care bill and why does Mike Michaud want Congress to stay in session until the bill is passed?
It’s the old used car salesman’s trick: Never let them off the lot until they buy. Michaud knows that if his colleagues went home to their districts and heard from their constituents, this bill would die.
Americans do not support this bill, but Congress is not listening. This is because they feel more accountable to special interests than the people’s interests.
As a member of Congress, Michaud is supposed to protect Mainers. Instead, he has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies, health associations and hospitals. So whose side do you think Michaud is really on?
This is a triumph of politics over policy and of special interests over the people.
We need to reform health care, but we need to do it right. Michaud should take the August recess, listen to Mainers and work to create real health care reform that will actually work.
Jason J. Levesque is an Auburn small-business owner and Republican candidate in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. His web site is www.levesqueformaine.com.