Blue Dog Childers Wants Health Care Reform, Just Not at the Current Cost

Rep. Travis Childers speaks at a conference in Oxford as Three Rivers Planning and Development District Director Randy Kelly listens.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 20 percent of Mississippians lack health insurance. But the state’s Congressional delegation is far from sold on the idea of federal health care reform. MPB’s Cari Gervin has more.

President Barack Obama wanted the House to vote on health care reform before its August recess. But the 52 members of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition successfully delayed a vote until fall at the earliest.

Mississippi Representatives Gene Taylor and Travis Childers are proud members of the Blue Dogs. Despite a lot of criticism, Childers won’t apologize for slowing down the legislation.

Childers was in Oxford Friday to speak at an Elder Law conference. It’s a topic he knows something about, having owned and run a nursing home for years. He says that same job gave him a thorough understanding of the good and the bad in the current health care system.

“I still say that we have the best health care system in the world. Uh, but health insurance premiums are rising seven times faster than wages are.”

Those rising costs are hurting the clients Ginny Kilgore sees every day. She’s the longtime director of the Elder Law Project at the pro-bono North Mississippi Rural Legal Services. Kilgore says she didn’t expect a vote this summer, but she thinks health care reform has got to happen soon.

“But I do hope what they come up with is, is the best to help those people who, who really cannot afford to do things.”

Childers says he is committed to some version of health care reform, but his concern is the cost – even though 19 percent of Mississippians are already receiving publicly subsidized healthcare in the form of Medicaid.

“And let me remind you, we’re not talking about free insurance. But what we’re talking about, again, is taking enough of the waste out to let us move forward. Otherwise, all we’re doing is adding to the deficit.”

But with many of Childers’ constituents up in arms at his support of any type of health care reform, a long battle likely looms ahead.

For MPB News, I’m Cari Gervin in Oxford.