HOLLAND Mich. (WZZM) - President Obama calls the House's vote passing the "Affordable Healthcare for America Act" Saturday night historic. Now he's calling on the senate to follow the example, but it may not be so easy.
220 representatives voted to pass the health care bill in the House, but only one was Republican. Michigan's congressional delegation split along party lines. Republican US Representative Pete Hoekstra was among the 215 congressmen and women who voted against this bill.
"I think the fundamental problem with the bill that passed the House last night is that it significantly changes the parameters of health care by moving it to a government dominated system rather than an individual dominated system," he said Sunday to a group of reporters in his Holland office. "I mean the Republican option is one that says we know there are problems in health care. We want to move with more authority. We want to move more control back to individuals."
He feels one of the biggest flaws with the bill is it limits competition to the point where employers will stop covering workers altogether.
"You may decide to buy it from the government. I may decide to buy it from Blue Cross Blue Shield. That is not the fundamental problem. The problem is the government will totally establish the parameters of health care by moving it to a government dominated system rather than an individual dominated system.
If you go into a business and say we are going to give you a payroll tax of 8% and you can get out of the health care business and dump all of your employees out on the public plan, I think a lot of companies are going to do that. I think they are going to want to get rid of the hassle.," he said. "If this bill became law you would see it be a significant drag on the economy. And I think it, the uncertainty with this bill, is one of the reasons you are seeing 10.2% unemployment now. Why you are seeing 15% unemployment in the state of Michigan. Businesses are just very, very uncertain as to what this is going to cost, how much it is going to cost them, what it is going to do the dollar what it is going to do the economy and with that kind of uncertainty businesses do not invest."
Interestingly, Hoekstra says most Republicans and Democrats agreed on about 70 to 80 percent of the things in this bill and feels if approached differently it could have passed with an almost unanimous vote. He says he is in favor of reform that addresses key problems like pre-existing conditions, affordability, and competition.
"Allow insurance to be sold across state lines so you get more product in the market competing," he argued.
The health care bill is now headed to the U-S Senate where he, and many others feel it is likely to have a much harder time passing in its current form.
"Because of the nature of how the Senate works I think the Senate bill will come out without a public option, probably more variation with the types of insurance individuals will be able to buy. I think it will be fundamentally different than what came out of the House," he said suggesting he might even vote for a bill that looks like that. " If the senate comes out with a bill that fundamentally addresses some of the issues that are out there without this massive intervention of government, yeah, I will stay open."
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