News Home

By Jim McNally | Statesville R&L

Published: August 21, 2009

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx's call-in town hall meeting Thursday night was different from the in-person affairs that garnered national attention on YouTube and TV news programs in recent weeks.

It was a civil affair.

Foxx, a Republican, was joined in the approximately 70-minute telephone town hall by Rep. Phil Roe, a Republican from Tennessee who is also a physician.

Foxx, whose 5th District includes the northern three-fourths of Iredell County, fielded calls from 11 people from across the district. Two of those calls were from Statesville residents.

Foxx opened her comments by telling callers that they were welcome to talk about any topic, but she also framed the meeting as one that would deal with the current national debate regarding health care.

"I want to say that there are many people who have said that Republicans are not interested in reforms in the health care system," Foxx said.

"But that could not be farther from the truth."

Foxx said the GOP has introduced a bill that includes many of the party's "principles." Among those, she noted were affordability of health care, the ability to cross state lines to purchase health insurance, a plan that would allow people to team up and form a pool that would lower insurance costs, choices for seniors and "high-risk" insurance plans.

"The current bill," Foxx said, "has none of these items in it."

Foxx said she has read the entire bill of more than 1,000 pages. She later suggested others do the same, but admitted during her perusal of the bill she had to stand up "or I would have fallen asleep."

She said the bill, HR-3200, is available online and at a number of libraries throughout the district. Foxx said that while the United States has "the best health care system in the world ... there are areas" that need to be reformed.

"We want insurance for every American," she said. "But we want patient-centered health care, not government-centered health care."

The first call came from a woman named Tammie, from East Bend, who said she relies on Medicare and Medicaid for illnesses she has suffered with since birth. She was worried the plan calls for her to be taken off of these programs. 

Foxx answered by saying she is "not in favor of reducing Medicaid," but explained that Medicare "will be broke in eight years" if things continue to progress as they have.

Regarding those programs, Rep. Roe added that his concern involved the "rationing" of health care.
"If you end up with a single-payer plan," Roe said, "people get put in lines."

A man named Michael, from Mocksville, said he was not an advocate of the so-called "public option," which would allow some people to purchase health insurance from the federal government. He was worried that private health insurance providers would "drop me to save money."

Most people, he said, are closer than they think to a catastrophic emergency that will leave them bankrupt.

"There is nothing in the new bill for catastrophic coverage," Foxx said, adding that when health insurance was created, it was done so exclusively for catastrophic situations. "Our concern is that people will be forced into something they don't want to get in to."

Roe said that if there was catastrophic coverage in the bill, the question would be, "Who would pay for it?"

Later, he compared the U.S. to England, which provides universal health care. The survival rates of certain cancers is much higher in the U.S., he said.

"Our system needs a lot of help," Roe explained. "But I want you to make those decisions, not the government."

A man who identified himself as Mr. Spivey from Kernersville later asked Foxx if health care was a "right or a privilege?"

Foxx implied that it was privilege because it is not mentioned in the Constitution and said, therefore, that if the matter is government one at all it is a state government one.

Matters like the health care debate, she said, are actually taking time and resources away from the federal government's "No. 1 priority," which, she said "is the defense of the nation."

Lloyd from Statesville asked if tort reform would help lower costs, and Foxx said it would. But, she said, the Democrats' bill does not deal with the issue.

The other caller from Statesville, Cynthia, asked where copies of the bill could be found to read.

Foxx said one good thing that has come out of the health care debate is that it has gotten people involved in their government and she encouraged them to continue with their interest.

"Please stay engaged," she said.