Rep. Phil Gingrey on Health Care

Victim of Media Spin

Sep 20, 2009 Linda Sue Grimes

A 45-second clip from a speech attempts to paint Rep. Gingrey as a crass buffoon amused by the suffering of his fellow Americans. Context forms a very different picture.

Before his 2002 election to the U.S. House Representatives from the 11th district, Marietta, Georgia, Dr. Phil Gingrey served two terms as a state senator. And before entering politics, he practiced medicine as an OB-GYN for 26 years, delivering over 5,000 babies.

Rep. Phil Gingrey is one of the House representatives with plans to help solve the problem of rising health care costs, HR2377 and HR 4541. He explains to a constituent, “As the author of the Assisting Doctors to Obtain Proficient and Transmissible Health Information Technology (ADOPT HIT) Act of 2009 and the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2009, I believe that we can accomplish these goals by providing tax incentives to physicians to invest in electronic medical records, as well as significantly reforming our medical malpractice liability system.”

President Barack Obama, the Bipartisan?

President Barack Obama, while claiming to want a bipartisan bill and saying he will listen to Republican proposals, will not listen to Gingrey; nor will Obama listen to Rep. Tom Price of Roswell, also a physician and chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, nor to House minority leader, John Boehner, nor to any of the other Republican proposals. All of these representatives have written letters to Obama, who responds by thanking them for their letters, but ignoring their requests for a hearing.

Americans who pay attention only to left-leaning media will not have any of this information, but instead think that Republicans want to keep the status quo, while laughing at the poor people who are suffering because of the rising cost of health care.

Media Spin

Two online media outlets, Media Matters and the Huffington Post, featured the headline, “Rep. Gingrey Laughs Off 14,000 Americans Losing Their Health Insurance Every Day,” with an accompanying 45-second clip from a long speech Rep. Gingrey delivered on the House floor September 17, 2009. The Huffington Post declared, “Media Matters catches Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey (Georgia) in a pretty insensitive moment during a speech on the floor of the House.”

The obvious implication is that Rep. Gingrey (R-GA) thinks it amusing that 14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day. But even a cursory perusal of the clip from his speech reveals that he is ridiculing the idea that reforming the entire health care system is necessary to deliver a lower-cost health care system. According to Gingrey, people are losing their health care insurance because they are losing their jobs, a fact that does not signal that the entire health care delivery system must be fundamentally transformed.

Americans Oppose “Single Payer” Plan

Obviously, the rising cost of health care insurance is one of the many economic contributing factors that result in lay-offs. The cost of health care insurance and delivery systems must be reined in, but the current Obama reform plan offers no guarantee that health care costs will decrease. The debate is still open on how to accomplish lower health care costs. But the President does not want to listen to alternatives to his plan that opens the door to the “single payer” plan, which he endorsed repeatedly as a Senator.

Americans agree that rising health care costs are damaging families and the economy, but ObamaCare, continues to lose support, with 56% opposed and 43% in favor, according to the most recent Rasmussen Report. Most Americans do not want a “single payer” system like the Canadian and British systems. According to Rasmussen, only 32% favor the single payer, while 57% oppose. And most Americans understand that the Obama plan is merely a disguised first step to a total government take-over of the health care system.

Sticking to the Argument vs. Ad Hominem Attacks

A legitimate debate is one that focuses on how to create the proper reforms for lowering the costs of delivering health care to Americans. The president by-passes such a debate by ignoring any opposing discussion and refusing to listen to members of congress who actually have plans for solving the problem of rising health care costs.

And instead of focusing on and fairly reporting the actual debate, deceptive partisan media outlets like Media Matters and the Huffington Post cut and paste and append misleading claims that derail the discussion, leaving their audience with skewed, distorted bits of misinformation.

It is always easier just to ignore the opponents than to work with them in good faith, and apparently it is more satisfying for the left to label those with alternative ideas crass than to report their alternatives fairly and honestly.

The copyright of the article Rep. Phil Gingrey on Health Care in American Affairs is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish Rep. Phil Gingrey on Health Care in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Rep. Phil Gingrey