PORT TOWNSEND — U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer detailed the two-fold importance of rural hospitals in remarks Monday during his visit to Jefferson Healthcare.
“Not only are you an important provider of medical services, you are an important employer,” the Gig Harbor Democrat said to about 40 members of the hospital’s staff and administration.
Kilmer, a Port Angeles native whose 6th Congressional District includes Clallam and Jefferson counties, went on to say the government isn’t providing essential support.
“What any employer looks for from the government is an environment of trust and predictability, which Congress has done a fine job of screwing up,” he said, pointing to the inability of Congress to properly define the Sustainable Growth Rate, a formula that links physician payments to an economic growth target.
“In the past few years, Congress has waited until the very last minute and then approved a one-year patch rather than instituting a substantial fix.
“They should develop a permanent solution rather than just kicking the can down the road.”
Kilmer said that hospitals don’t know how much they will be reimbursed for the next year, which adversely affects budget planning.
“You are probably right to assume that you won’t get a 25 percent hit, but with Congress you never know,” he said.
Kilmer said that while he was not in Congress for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, he has voted 16 times against its repeal, which is an indicator of an unwelcome partisanship in the nation’s capital.
“There are things that I like about the Affordable Care Act and things that I think should be fixed, but rather than working with what needs to be fixed, Congress is playing political games with it,” Kilmer said.
“I like that children can be covered by their parents’ insurance until they’re 26 and that people are no longer being denied health care, and that mammograms, cancer screenings and yearly physicals are now provided without a co-pay.
“Many companies don’t provide health care not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford to, so we need to look at what we can do to provide financial incentives that enable companies to participate.”
Kilmer’s meeting with staff was followed by a private meeting with hospital administration.
The visit was part of the “Kilmer at Your Company” program.
He also met with employees of Nippon Paper Industries USA in Port Angeles on Monday afternoon.
Kilmer said he is accessible to people in the district and will attempt to make time for any constituent who visits him in Washington, D.C.
In addition to discussing health care, Kilmer also spoke on the U.S. economy.
“Small businesses are important because when they succeed, they lure the big companies to the area,” he said.
“If you look at how we make it out of recessions, it’s not the big guys that are growing the jobs.”
Kilmer also connected a quote that has had a lasting impression on him to the current state of American society.
He said that one thing that stuck with him from taking anthropology in college was a Margaret Meade quote, in which she said one way to determine whether a civilization was advanced was if a healed femur was discovered.
“With these civilizations, if you broke your femur you were pretty much cooked; you couldn’t fix it on your own and you needed someone who cared about you enough to help you heal,” he said.
“We have a tremendous amount of broken femurs in our society right now, and the question is whether we care enough to stand up and do what it takes to heal or do we tell people they are on their own?”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
