Roger Simmons

To the editor,

In Friday’s paper I found a letter from Patricia Morin to be very helpful in my own personal understanding of the health care debate. Her letter referred to page 425 of the draft House Health Care Bill and expressed her outrage about mandatory counseling and how this will lead to cutting care for seniors. As a proponent of health care reform I have followed the debate and the news but had never actually read any of the proposed legislation until Patricia’s letter spurred me to actually Google the relevant parts of the bill and to follow that up with a reading of the Social Security Act (section 1861 of the SSA title 42 USC) that the items on page 425 actually propose to amend.

What I learned from this exercise is that the section of the Social Security Act that will be amended contains definitions of the different terms used in the administration of Medicare and that the text on page 425 simply defines (in legislative language) what qualifies as “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” What these changes actually mean is that if you elect to get “Advanced Care Planning Consultation” and you want Medicare (the Federal Government) to reimburse your health care provider for it then what you receive has to meet these requirements. That seemed pretty simple to me and as many times as I looked at it I could find no requirement to terminate care for the elderly in any way. Furthermore, this “Advanced Care Planning Consultation” is not mandatory in any way. You don’t have to have it to participate in Medicare. As someone who has had “Advanced Care Planning Consultation” I am thankful that they explained most, if not all of things, contained on page 425 of the draft House Health Care Bill. As a taxpayer I think that if Medicare (the Federal Government) is going to reimburse health care providers for this type of counseling then it should be defined somewhere so we set some standards and get value for the tax dollars spent.

Now I have to admit that this is hard work and takes a few moments to part the legislative mumbo jumbo to get to the right paragraphs and subsections. If it hadn’t been a rainy Saturday I doubt I would have taken the time to actually make the effort and instead have blown off Ms. Morin’s comments. Instead, what it helped me to realize is that most of the hysteria opposing health care reform is driven by a lack of knowledge and a willingness to take the time to read things for yourself.

It is easy to listen to Fred Thompson or other commentators and get fired up. But please take the time to pause and research for yourself what somebody else tells you. You might learn something, I know I did.

Roger Simmons

Meredith