Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993                   TAG: 9403170015
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB GOODLATTE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HEALTH CARE

As I sat in the House chamber and listened to the president, I was impressed by his grasp of the problem. And I agreed with his basic premise that real reform must be accomplished.

The stakes are enormous. One out of every $7 in America is spent on health care. Every year we spend more than $900 billion on medical care and that amount is expected to top $1 trillion in coming years under current conditions.

But the numbers alone do not really bear out the importance of the health-care issue. That happens when a son, daughter, wife or husband gets sick and needs care. Then, it's vitally important that the best doctors are immediately available, a top-flight hospital is easily accessible, the health-care insurance covers the bill, and the needed medicine can be quickly purchased at a reasonable cost.

The president's speech did a good job of spelling out the problems: spiraling medical costs; the millions of Americans who do not have health insurance; business owners and self-insured families who cannot afford ever-increasing premiums; individuals prevented from purchasing insurance when they switch jobs because of pre-existing conditions; the huge amounts of useless paperwork; etc.

The solutions to these problems, the nitty-gritty details, have not been addressed. In coming weeks and months, these details will have to be hammered out by Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, the president and Congress.

I'm going to work for health-care reform that focuses on several key principles. First, families must have the ability to choose their own doctors, their own methods of treatment and their own type of insurance coverage. Moms and dads here at home, working with their local doctors, know what's best for their family health needs.

Second, we absolutely must not create another huge, inefficient, ineffective, government bureaucracy with Washington bureaucrats running our health-care system.

Like just about every other government-run program, unlimited amounts of taxpayer dollars will be wasted and the program will not work.

Third, new tax increases on families and businesses should not be tolerated. We're going to hear politicians saying that the only way to reform health care is to hit folks with additional tax increases. Well, I've said it before, but as the recent tax-and-spend budget-busting deal from Washington clearly shows, Americans are not undertaxed. The government simply spends too much.

Fourth, we must make our health-care system easier and more efficient to use for patients and for doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers. This means real malpractice reform, tax reform, streamlining paperwork and eliminating useless regulations.

Our challenge is to fix what is broken with our health-care system while maintaining the basic high-quality system we currently have.

It's not going to be easy and the overall solutions are not simple. However, the very health of our families and even our nation is at stake, so we better get to work now.

Bob Goodlatte of Roanoke represents the 6th District in the House of Representatives.