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Congressional Candidate Holds Town Hall Meeting On Health Care

Candidate Holds Town Meeting On Health Care
By Mike Donahue
Moapa Valley Progress
Published Oct. 21, 2009

Republican congressional candidate Dr. Joe Heck told a Town Hall meeting last Saturday that, although health care reform is a critical issue facing America today, none of the bills currently under debate in the House and Senate do an adequate job of addressing the problem.

“I don’t think you’d find a person anywhere who doesn’t want real health care reform,” Heck said. “But the bills today are really all about health insurance reform, which is really only part of the problem.”

Heck, who is an emergency room physician at University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas, told the 15 people in attendance that while there are two major health care bills being discussed in

Congressional candidate, Dr. Joe Heck outlined his views on federal health care reform during a town hall meeting Saturday.
Congress, “there are actually five – two in the Senate and three in House,” that are at different stages of debate. “I’m concerned about what they’re going to do to the people I take care of,” Heck said.

“There are a lot of things in these bills that will lead to increased costs and decreased access for patients,” he said. “I’m really concerned about the interference of government in the patient-physician relationship. I believe what it will all come down to eventually is rationing of health care.”

Heck, who is seeking to replace Democrat Rep. Dina Titus, said he previously participated in five other town hall meetings on health care. He explained he was leading the Moapa Valley gathering to further discuss the legislation and give him an opportunity to present his views on how improving the health care system would make it “more affordable and accessible to all of Southern Nevada.

“The claims that there are 48 million Americans without health insurance are erroneous,” he said. “When you take away 12 million illegal aliens, 6 million who are covered but claim they’re not, 4œ million who are eligible but who have not enrolled in a program, 3 million homeless for whom no program is going to work and millions of others there are just 12 million left.

“Now you’re talking about spending more than $1 trillion to insure just 12 million people,” Heck said. “The bills today will continue to grow government and continue to contribute to the massive deficit.”

In response to questions about what he could do as a lone congressman, Heck said that, if passed, the current bills would not take effect until 2013.

“If I’m elected there would still be time to make changes and I would work to repeal any poor legislation or create new, better health care reform legislation,” he said.

Heck outlined the direction he believed reform should take including: moving away from an employer-based insurance instead making policies individual to allow people to buy what they want and need; expanding Medicare so the uninsured or underinsured could buy in if needed, and giving caregivers incentives such as tax breaks for treating the uninsured.

“What we really need to do is make people accountable for their own health care,” Heck said. “There’s a lot of ‘feel good stuff’ being done out there, but it doesn’t solve the problems.”

The 47-year-old doctor formerly represented state Senate District 5 from 2004 to 2008. As a member of the U.S. Army reserve, he served with Operation Joint Endeavor in 1999, Operation Noble Eagle in 2003 and recently returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq.

Heck is president and medical director of Specialized Medical Operations, Inc., a company that provides medical training, consulting and operational support to law enforcement, the military and emergency medical services.

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