On the recordJuly 10, 2012
In March, to mark the 2-year anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare, I invited local doctors, business owners, and elected officials to talk about how the law will change the practice of health care on every level. We heard from Dr. Gerald Rothacker about the law's failure to reform medical liability and how young doctors don't even realize they're practicing defensive medicine, ordering unnecessary tests, and driving up costs. We heard from Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania's secretary for the Department of Public Welfare, about how the law will cause State spending to explode in the coming years. While Medicaid consumes 30 percent of the State budget now, if the law is fully implemented, it will consume over 60 percent. Pennsylvania won't be a State government. It will be a health plan that paves roads and funds schools on the side. We also heard from Kirby Sensenig, the owner of a local roofing company. He spoke about the difficult choice he will have to make in coming years about whether to keep providing insurance for his workers, or to pay the penalty and cast them into the health care exchanges. We all know how much health care reform was needed. We've all heard the stories about individuals denied care that they desperately needed. We've heard about the families who struggled to pay the bills when a child got sick. We all know someone who went without insurance because of the high cost of premiums. But this law did not fix what was broken.…
