PORT ANGELES — Thirty-seven people expressed their opposition to health-care reforms proposed by President Barack Obama by demonstrating Friday at Fifth and Peabody streets.
The hour-long demonstration, organized by Clallam County Republican Party Chairman Dick Pilling, took place outside the office of Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair.
Holding American flags and signs protesting taxes, the message protesters were sending was, “Hands off our health care,” Pilling said.
Obama’s proposed health care reform would require insurance companies to issue policies to anyone who seeks coverage, without turning them down or charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, The Associated Press reported.
To spread insurance more widely, hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies would be used to assist lower income families.
The version under consideration in the House of Representatives also calls for the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry.
But Obama’s plan would increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The increased spending and option for government-provided health insurance is what brought the protesters out on Friday.
Kay Garrison of Port Angeles said government-provided health insurance would result in “long lines and lots of rationing.”
Garrison said health-care reform would be better focused on placing a cap on malpractice lawsuits.
She said there are already enough government programs to help the uninsured.
Kaj and Laura Ahlburg, both former residents of Great Britain and Spain, said the government-run health care systems in those countries have failed, which is why they say the United States should not take part in providing health insurance.
“My mother [in Spain] has to wait in line to get a ticket to wait in another line,” Laura Ahlburg said. “People are so frustrated.”
U.S. health care
Her husband said health care in the United States is “pretty good, but not perfect. But it shouldn’t change to something inferior.”
Pilling referred to Obama’s plan as “forcing other people to buy it for yourself and others.”
Laura Ahlburg agreed.
“It’s not free,” she said. “Someone else has to pay for it.”
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
