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Monica Wehby on Health Care |
150,000 people have had their health insurance plans cancelled in Oregon. Premiums have increased. Medicare Advantage benefits for our state's seniors have been cut. The Obama administration is constantly changing its rules and regulations and delaying its mandates. As one person told her, "The Affordable Care Act has made my health insurance un-affordable."
This system is so flawed that it needs to be repealed and replaced with a patient-centered, market-based approach like the one Monica outlined in November of 2013 that increases access that is actually affordable.
Wehby, whose compensation at Legacy Emanuel has topped $1 million a year, countered that Conger was the one who has been squishy on opposing the new federal health care law.
And she was quick to insist that Congress needed fewer career politicians and "more MDs and less JDs," the latter being a reference to those, like Conger, with law degrees.
Wehby said, "It sounds a lot to me like those politicians who voted for ObamaCare and Cover Oregon and who are all of a sudden leading the charge to get rid of the laws they voted for in the first place," she said. "That's not me." She was clearly referring to the votes Conger took in the state Legislature to establish a state-run health exchange known as Cover Oregon under the terms of the federal health care law.
"I was against ObamaCare when it wasn't cool to be against ObamaCare," replied Wehby, noting that she appeared in a 2009 ad opposing the health care plan before it became law. She also insisted that Wyden's plan had several important differences from ObamaCare: "It was not the same as ObamaCare," she said. "It's a free market-based approach. It had bipartisan support, and it was budget neutral. That is a far cry from ObamaCare."