The administration and congressional Democrats would have the American public believe that opponents to their health care ‘reform’ plans are either wingnut tools of the insurance industry—blinded by the bigoted sermons of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck—or ignorant sheeple who cannot help but succumb to the ‘misinformation’ peddled by desperate advocates of the status quo.
Not so, says Carlos Gutierrez, former Commerce Secretary under the President George W. Bush. Gutierrez, the Cuban born former CEO of the Kellogg Company, insists his opposition to Democratic health care plans is a matter of patriotism, not politics.
“I love this country too much to let this happen,” he said on an RNC conference call Thursday. He stressed that he has no political ambitions, nor a vested political interest in the outcome of the health care debate.
Under the House plan, Gutierrez claimed, reimbursement rates would be too low to sustain high-quality care that Americans are accustom to receiving. Those low rates would result it fewer hospitals, fewer doctors, and less medical innovation, he said.
Gutierrez contrasted his motivations with those of the vociferous advocates of ObamaCare, who he says are motivated by “pure ideology;” one that “drives a belief in the power of government versus the power of individuals and the power of the market.”
The health care debate is not a debate over cost or insurance, he told callers, but rather a debate over the direction of the country. ObamaCare advocates seek an economy dominated by political interventions, while opponents fight for the free market, Gutierrez claimed.
Noting that he has lived in Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba, Gutierrez added that he “would not trade our system for anything in the world.”
Far from falling prey to the administration’s characterization of opponents as supporters of the status quo, however, he insisted that the insurance industry needs some “common sense, consumer-friendly reforms.”
“There are a thousand ways we can improve our system,” he added, “without betting the farm.”
