This following is an excerpt from The Fount online news article entitled "Fleming Wants 'Right Kind' Of Healthcare Reform Pt. 2"

Even though Congressman John Fleming opposes the Democratic plan for healthcare reform, he acknowledged that serious changes need to be made to the current system, and stated that this was the platform from which he launched his congressional campaign. He opposes government control in any way shape or form, but recognizes the need for American citizens to have primary care if at all possible in order to greatly minimize the need for emergency room visitation, thus enhancing lives and minimizing overall healthcare costs.

The congressman asked his audience a rhetorical question: "What is the problem with a government controlled healthcare system?" Then he asked his majority senior citizen audience how many of them liked Medicare. He estimated that probably 95% of them liked Medicare and said, "now that's a government run system." So the question becomes, why can Medicaid as a government run system be successful, whereas in Canada or Great Britain their government run systems are a disaster?

Congressman Fleming went on to explain the economics of Medicare from his own family practice perspective as a doctor. He said that the reimbursement for a Medicare patient is between 50-75% of a private insurance patient, and that the Medicare patient takes twice as long to treat. His reasons for the Medicare patient taking twice the amount of time to treat were "more illness, more pills, more effort to explain their problems and conditions and the things needing to be done."

He said that when you factor in the time involved with the lower amount of reimbursement, the amount he is paid as a doctor for a typical Medicare patient is about 30% of what he receives for a private insurance patient. Therefore, at least half of all patients need to be private insurance patients in order for him or any other doctor to avoid losing money and going out of business. He went on to say because doctors typically are paid by Medicare amounts that are below their overhead costs, they are forced to make up for it with their private insurance patients.

With that in mind, enter President Obama's proposal to create competition for the private insurance industry with a single payer public option, and we one may quickly see the major concern most every healthcare provider has with the current proposals of liberals. It's all about the Benjamins ($$$). A recent interview on CNN comes to mind where a certain German doctor talked about how he could earn six times his government controlled salary by treating patients on the other side of Germany's borders.

While Congressman Fleming agreed with President Obama's assessment that insurance rates are increasing faster than inflation, he offered some explanations as to why he believes this to be the case. "When you make a payment for your private insurance, you're not just making a payment for yourself and your family. You're paying for your mother and grandmother, the lady down the street who's on Medicare. You're paying for the kids down the street on Medicaid. You're paying for the guy who goes into the emergency room for a kidney stone who has NO insurance. You're paying for all of them too and therein lies the problem. It's about $1800 per family per year that you're paying to subsidize somebody else's care" says Fleming.

After reminding the audience that Medicare is scheduled to run out of money altogether in about 8 years, Congressman Fleming asked what would happen if the microcosm of Medicare gets expanded to a national single payer system that's being proposed, what's going to happen to those who currently pay for private insurance? There were many in the audience who concluded they would have to pay a whole lot more than they are right now.

The assumption in this particular scenario is that an increasing population would flood into the public option while fewer and fewer people would be paying higher and higher prices for private insurance. The president has already said a government run public option will be set lower than the private insurance companies in order to drive the private insurance company premiums down.

Congressman Fleming theorizes that as employers face the no-brainer choice of paying much lower insurance premiums for the government run public option to cover their employees, private insurance premiums won't go down but skyrocket even higher: "he's got his economics all messed up!" He went on to say that as employers begin to switch their employees over to the public option in order to save payroll expenses, their competitors are sure to follow and a snowball effect in this regard would take place.

The congressman estimated that when all is said and done, as many as 100 million Americans could end up in the government run healthcare system, and that only the very wealthy, the elite, and those in congress would have private healthcare insurance! "Now that's frightening. Congress is not as dumb as you think it is. Give Congress a little bit of credit. They carved out a waiver for themselves so that Congress will not be subject to be in the government run option" said Congressman Fleming.

He acknwoledged the unfairness of it, and stated that even though he and others submitted Resolution 615 to include representatives in the government run program, no Democrats would have any part of it "including Nancy Pelosi." He also stated that similar amendments were shot down by the Dems each and every time, and that a government run system couldn't function as good as Medicare is right now because it wouldn't be funded by subsidies like Medicare.

Another problem with the current proposals according to the Congressman Fleming is that when the government system grows to a certain point, care limits would have to be imposed, and that this is not going on with Medicare now because again, Medicare gets subsidies and there are no subsidies available for a large single payer system like the one currently being proposed.

Then, the congressman addressed the issue of consumerism if the currently proposed government option went through. He states that the current reality is if health insurance co-payments go up, usage or healthcare claims go down, and visa versa. The premise is, 'If I'm paying for this insurance, I might as well get everything I can get out of it.'

He basically theorizes that we as humans in America typically look for the best bargain value in a given situation, and if insurance premiums become super cheap, more and more people will flood the healthcare system with non-essential and menial concerns, just to get a work note or get out of school, thus raising healthcare costs.

And even though the congressman didn't say it directly, the scenario he painted could result in a dramatic slowdown of the current healthcare system, and possibly endanger the lives of some people who need catastrophic care. The congressman was adamant however about pointing out how President Obama's effort to decrease insurance premiums would cause consumer use of the healthcare system to skyrocket and weaken it rather than strengthen it. Congressman Fleming pointed out that the budget for such a system would grow out of control to a point where it would eventually fail.

He said that the state of Tennessee enacted a similar healthcare plan and when their budget swelled from $3 billion to $9 billion they just killed the program, and that the state of Massachusetts has a government run plan that is currently $2 billion in the red "and they don't know what to do about it. And it's not working in any of them (states)."

Then, the congressman talked about how healthcare is not working very well in Canada and Great Britain. He said that Americans are not accustomed to centuries of aristocracy the way people in England are, that we don't take very well being dictated what we can and can't do - especially when it comes to an issue like healthcare.

He then began to talk about the heart wrenching and spine tingling horror stories associated with government run single payer systems. He quoted the president of the Canadian Medical Association as saying their system is imploding, their costs are exploding, they have long waiting lines, and their concept of what is considered important or urgent is very different than America's.

He said that there is a 15 month waiting list for a child to get ear tubes, whereas here in America a child can get tubes in 2-3 days. He talked about a child in Canada who suffered an infection that couldn't be stopped until the tubes were inserted and because of the long wait the child lost his hearing. He also told the story about a woman who suffered from partial paralysis in her waist area who couldn't get immediate treatment because she was told "you haven't suffered long enough."

The congressman also discussed how Canada's clinics and hospitals shut down when their budgets run out of money until the next fiscal year comes back around, even if that shut-down is for 3-4 months at a time, and same thing with the doctors themselves. Congressman Fleming said if the doctors in Canada (which are salaried) have met their annual quota of patients for the year with 3 or 4 months still left or whatever it takes, they stop seeing patients "until it's time to get paid again!"

"So it's the DMV, it's the post office, it's whatever you'd normally think the government to be, and there's no way it would be any different here because the dynamics are all the same" said Congressman Fleming.

The next thing the congressman dealt with was the estimated cost of the Democrat's proposed healthcare reform bill which is estimated at $1.6 trillion, and his audience began to get roused up. Congressman Fleming said, "Now remember that the highest deficit this country ever had before President Obama was a half trillion dollars under Bush the year of the surge, and it came down to about $250 billion after that.

In President Obama's first year of office, the deficit is 2 trillion dollars - 2 trillion dollars. April 15th, we've spent all the money we're taking in for the entire year, everything that we've spent after April 15th is borrowed money. Every deficit as far as the eye can see at this point before this bill passes, will be a trillion dollars with President Obama. We already have debt of eleven trillion dollars and going up rapidly.

The only way we can sustain what we're doing is countries like China - who by the way has become a capitalist machine and who is running surpluses (that's the way we're able to borrow the money); Europe is moving towards more capitalism and less socialism, while we are running headlong into socialism. So everybody else gets it. They know we've been doing it right and all of a sudden we're zigging when they're zagging.

The country of Japan, they passed a stimulus bill some years ago when they were in a recession, they stayed in that recession for 10 years. There's no reason to believe that what they've done currently through economics or excessive spending yields anything over time.

The President says though, that he's gonna be able to close the gap on all but about $250 billion. He says that out of $1.6 trillion, he says 2/3 of that is gonna be savings, and 1/3 of that will be extra taxes. Remember, this is the candidate Obama who said that if you are middle class, he said '95% of Americans won't pay one thin dime in extra taxes' and yet that is simply impossible based on the way this bill is set up.

So what about the savings? The first $500 billion will come out of Medicare. Remember the President said if you like what you have you can keep it? Well first of all you just heard me say if you're on private insurance it won't be there when you get ready to keep it. You take $500 billion out of Medicare, and Medicare cuts doctors and hospitals to the bone. I was talking to a heart surgeon last night, and he was paid 1/3 of what he was getting paid just a few years ago for doing heart surgery. About the only thing the doctors are seeing a growth in income is in the cosmetic field because insurance is not paying the bill, people are."

When the doctor/congressman asked "Do you believe it's possible to take a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare and it not affect your service?" people in the audience were heard saying "no" and then some!

A short while later, Congressman Fleming said "The President is saying let's take these two programs that we can't solve, the budgets are going crazy, we're underpaying the providers already, and let's enlarge it 5-10 times the size that it is, and suddenly we're gonna save money! (chuckling in the background) What kind of sense does that make? What economist in his right mind would make such a claim? That's what the socialist Democrats and your President have you believe. It's just beyond any understanding of economics."

This concludes the second segment in our series on Congressman Fleming's Town Hall Meeting in Minden, LA on Monday August 24th 2009. In our next segment, Congressman Fleming makes a couple of more points before hearing questions from the floor, and he presents a detailed chart entitled "Organizational Chart Of The House Democrat's Health Plan."

Part 1 of the 3 part series can be found here.  Part 3 of the 3 part series can be found here.