Obamacare’s future: As a primary care physician and health care advocate, I am very concerned about Representative Greg Walden’s stance on the Affordable Care Act. Walden is Oregon’s only Republican Congressional representative; he is also quite powerful nationally as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and as a member of Republican party leadership.
Walden wants to repeal the ACA, while keeping limited politically popular provisions of it such as protection for those with pre-existing conditions. This will not work – without mandating health insurance coverage for everyone, the market can’t support those who are sickest, and many people would lose their health insurance.
In Walden’s comments about the ACA (recent testimony from Feb 2 is one example), he fails to mention its many benefits, such as the 438,000 Oregonians who gained insurance through expansion of the Oregon Health Plan under the ACA. OHP is a national leader in providing locally-run, value-based health care to those insured. Ironically, Walden’s own constituents would be hit particularly hard by ACA repeal, given the especially large percentage of citizens in the geographic areas he covers who benefit from OHP coverage.
Oregon has a proud history of decades of leadership and innovation in health care reform. Rep. Walden, your actions as a Congressional leader affect all Oregonians; don’t be the one to lead our state in the wrong direction on health care.
Stacie Carney, Southeast Portland
Civics in 60 seconds: Don’t people pay attention in civics class? Nearly every day I see a letter to the editor that shows they don’t know the most basic things about American democracy.
In a nutshell, there are three branches to our government: Congress legislates or makes laws, the president and his staff executes those laws, and the courts judge whether those laws are in agreement with our Constitution. When a President makes a law, he is acting outside his responsibility. When a federal judge is asked through a lawsuit whether a law or executive action is constitutional, that judge has the responsibility to review the case and make a ruling.
Our Republican Congress needs to remind their Republican president that presidential actions and orders must follow the rules of law, and that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to make laws.
True American patriots should be committed to our Constitution and the roles it gives to the three branches of government.
Martha Wiley, Vancouver
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