{"id":32653,"date":"2017-05-15T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T22:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmn.fhsu.edu\/?p=32653"},"modified":"2017-05-15T17:00:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T22:00:15","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-american-health-care-act-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=32653","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Editor: American Health Care Act – Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opinion expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect in any way those of the Tiger Media Network, its staff or Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n

To the Editor:<\/p>\n

Our congressman, Rep. Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Great Bend) voted for the American Health Care Act, saying it would be good for patients and good for Kansas hospitals.<\/p>\n

However, he was contradicted by Andrew Gurman, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, who warned that the AHCA would cause \u201cserious harm to patients and the healthcare delivery system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Marshall, what do you know that the AMA does not?<\/p>\n

In a telephone conference following the passage of the bill, reporters gave Rep. Marshall plenty of opportunities to answer that question. They repeatedly confronted Rep. Marshall with the fact that what he says about the bill is just the opposite of what health care experts say about it.<\/p>\n

But the congressman avoided the substance of those questions. He never challenged critics\u2019 methodology, data, or assumptions. Instead, if a conclusion undermined his narrative, he dismissed or disparaged the source.<\/p>\n

For example, when told that Sheldon Weisgrau, the director of Kansas\u2019s Health Reform Resource Project, says \u201cAHCA would mean less money for Kansas because it cuts Medicaid and over the next 10 years will cause 24 million people to lose insurance,\u201d Marshall said, \u201cI have never heard of Sheldon Whatever-his-last-name-is, so I\u2019m not sure what kind of expert I would consider him.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked why the American Hospital Association and the National Rural Health Association oppose the AHCA, if it\u2019s so good for hospitals, especially rural hospitals, Marshall replied, \u201cI don\u2019t think they totally understand the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

When told that numerous analysts say the AHCA would hurt \u201cthe elderly, the disabled, and especially those in categories of low-income,\u201d Marshall said, \u201cThat\u2019s what the national media wants to spin.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is one source Rep. Marshall does not discredit: Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, a long-time proponent of reducing funding for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In the same interview in which Marshall made the infamous comments about the poor not wanting health care, he also said he considered Sec. Price \u201ca brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Marshall faithfully echoes what Sec. Price says about the AHCA.<\/p>\n

But in a recent interview on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union,\u201d Sec. Price earned Four Pinocchios from Fact Checker at the Washington Post for his misleading claims about the AHCA.<\/p>\n

So what evidence is there that Rep. Marshall\u2019s nice-sounding promises are actually true\u2014and not just an effort to get us to accept the right-wing\u2019s long-held goal\u2014to reduce public benefits and transfer that money to the rich?<\/p>\n

That question dominated Rep. Marshall\u2019s town hall in Wamego on May 10.<\/p>\n

Over and over again, constituents asked him:<\/p>\n

Where is your evidence, Rep. Marshall?<\/p>\n

What studies or data are you relying on?<\/p>\n

What are your views based upon?<\/p>\n

He had no answer!<\/p>\n

He asked us simply to trust his years of experience as a physician.<\/p>\n

But Rep. Marshall, the American Medical Association has a few years of experience, too. And unlike you, the AMA uses data, studies, and analysis.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re the ones telling us the AHCA would cause \u201cserious harm\u201d to Kansans and Kansas hospitals. You can\u2019t dispute that conclusion–but you voted for the bill anyway?<\/p>\n

How then can you say you are keeping your physicians\u2019 oath to \u201cdo no harm?\u201d<\/p>\n

If the health care system gets worse, rather than better\u2014if your claims turn out to be as baseless as they currently appear–right-wing catch phrases will not protect Kansans from increased physical suffering or financial pain.<\/p>\n

Margy Stewart, Junction City, Kansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opinion expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect in any way those of the Tiger Media Network, its… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[11055,106,441,103],"class_list":["post-32653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-american-health-care-act","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-opinion-2","tag-tiger-media-network"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}