Latham’s health care message puzzling

Fourth District Congressman Tom Latham, R-Iowa, is a likable man. But at his Sept. 1 forum on health care reform at Cresco he used his personal touch to repeat three of “The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate,” explained by Newsweek's Sharon Begley (Sept. 7 issue):

1. Obama's reform will cut $500 billion from Medicare. Latham didn't mention that this amount refers to decreases in proposed Medicare increases over the next decade, or that the House bill GIVES Medicare $340 billion in the same period. (Begley writes that this information comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

2. Illegal aliens will be able to buy in. (The bill rules that out. Begley writes “that Medicare - the closest thing to the proposals in the House bill - has no such problem.”)

3. The proposed reform will “put Washington bureaucrats between you and your doctor to ration or even deny treatments” (as Latham puts it in an e-mail from his office July 17).

One Cresco listener said insurance bureaucrats do that now. Latham didn't answer.

All this is puzzling, when Latham's list of health care reform goals looks very like President Obama's. It appears Latham is among the Republicans like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, whose interest in health care reform is mainly as a means to take President Obama down.

Harland Nelson

Decorah