Tiberi remains firm in opposition to overhaul

Tiberi remains firm in opposition to overhaul

By CRAIG McDONALD
Managing Editor

NEWARK — Republican Pat Tiberi remains steadfastly opposed to the current health-care bill.

The 12th Congressional District representative said the atmosphere on Capitol Hill this weekend remains “tense, more charged than normal.”

Tiberi issued a statement on Friday asserting the bill “does nothing to actually reform the health-care system in this country. It just adds people to an already broken system.”

Tiberi said: “We’re shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. We’re going to add 16 million people to a system that is already broken. It’s insanity. For the first time, the IRS is going to be involved in health care as a monitor.”

Tiberi said there is bipartisan support for some aspects of the proposed plan. He cited allowing college-age children who are uninsured to remain on their parents’ plans as “something we can agree too, but the bulk of these people who would be brought in will be going straight to Medicaid.”

Tiberi expressed alarm at the current state of Medicaid and Medicare and sees adding more people into those systems as an indefensible option.

“One of the things I hear about all the time when at home is the cost of health care,” Tiberi said. “We’re not dealing with the cost of health care. We simply don’t deal with it. We’re already seeing this in central Ohio.”

Tiberi says that doctors are not adequately reimbursed for treating someone on Medicare or Medicaid.

“There is cost-shifting that occurs to make up for reimbursements to Medicare and Medicaid,” he said. “Doctors in central Ohio are now telling central Ohio patients, ‘We no longer accept new Medicare patients.’ It’s gotten that bad.

“Medicare doesn’t acknowledge it’s happening today,” he continued, “but it’s already begun to happen. I’ve talked to doctors and patients who’ve confirmed they aren’t accepting new Medicare patients. That’s already happening. We don’t deal with any of that and that’s after a slew of tax increases in this new bill.”

On Friday afternoon, it was announced an arm of the Democratic National Committee was aiming for “368 phone calls to be placed from the Newark area” to Tiberi’s office before close of the business day to lobby the congressman.

Tiberi remained staunch in his opposition Friday afternoon, however.

“This is not the reform that we need and it’s not dealing with the costs that are bankrupting our systems,” he said. “We’re dealing with access and not cost of health care.”

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