With standing room only, over 100 concerned citizens from Howard and Winneshiek counties crowded into Grange Hall at C US Bank in Cresco last Monday afternoon to listen and ask Congressman Tom Latham some pointed questions. The main topic on everyone's mind was health care reform.
    Latham started off by explaining some of the bills coming up for vote when Congress is back in session on Sept. 8. He said some bills, including the $787 billion Stimulus Bill, were introduced at midnight during the last session and representatives were asked to vote on it that afternoon.
    After opening the floor to questions and comments, the main issue the audience wanted to discuss was health care.     “Ninety percent of Iowans currently have insurance and they all have concerns regarding health care,” Latham said, before opening the floor for discussion.
    He said he wants to make sure there is an appeals process in the bill when it is presented. This would allow policy holders to complain if they are not being covered for certain procedures.
    One aspect brought up several times was how competition may be a good thing when it comes to public health care and insurance companies.
    “I'd like to see the competition open up as a free market and allow interstate policies,” Latham said.
    One comment on having a public health care policy came from Ron Deike  of Lime Springs who said his wife had been in the service.     “The military’s medical care was good. The system is out there,” Deike said.
    A high school senior asked Latham if a national health care policy was legal under the Tenth Amendment where “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
    With many senior citizens attending the town hall meeting, Medicare was also high on the list of concerns.
    One health care worker said, “In the past few months, Medicare has been getting tougher on admissions to the hospital. Their criteria for being admitted has changed. I had a person who had hip surgery who was not allowed to be admitted.”
    Latham admitted things were changing. He explained how tougher criteria was hurting local hospitals.
    “It is getting harder for the hospitals to break even. Medicare only pays 80 percent of what private insurance pays and since 60-70-80 percent of all hospital stays are from Medicare patients, it is getting harder to break even,” he said.
    Another concern was all the advertising from pharmaceutical companies,
    “It's freedom of speech and free enterprise,” Latham responded.
    Then he said the drug companies were in favor of the new health care reform bill because it would help them more than hurt them. Latham was then confronted as to how much money his campaign received from the pharmaceutical companies. His response was he didn't know, but it wouldn't influence his decision.
    “I'm opposing them. I represent the people and what they want,” he said.
    During the meeting, Latham presented Olive Sims the Purple Heart for her father, John Fretheim of Decorah, who served in WWI.
    A Traveling Help Desk from Latham's office is in Cresco the second Tuesday of each month from 9:30-10:30 a.m. at the Cresco Area Chamber of Commerce.