Panetta: Bipartisan work on healthcare the only solution

WHILE SENATE Republicans failed this week to get consensus on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and are plotting their next move, Congressman Jimmy Panetta is not just blaming the GOP for not including Democrats at the table, he's expressing frustration at his own party for not addressing one of Obamacare's biggest sticking points — its cost to the middle class.

Despite a seven-year promise to repeal President Obama's Affordable Care Act and replace it with a plan they say would bring down premiums for taxpayers who fund the bulk of it, Republicans have not been able to secure enough votes to make it happen.

In an interview two weeks ago, and in responses he provided to The Pine Cone this week, Panetta criticized the GOP for going it alone on legislation to replace the struggling ACA.

He called the Republican effort "rushed," and not transparent, and said that, under the draft GOP plan, about 49,000 people in Monterey County would lose Medicaid coverage, and about 13,000 would lose insurance coverage they obtained through the ACA over the course of a decade.

Panetta said that any new or revised plan should preserve the expansion of Medicaid, because "it's hard to take away something when we've given it to people," Panetta said.

In California, for example, one-third of the state's population now receives free medical coverage provided by taxpayers. But, the freshman congressman also pointed the finger at Democrats, saying they "should continue to show humility in regards to areas where the ACA fails, and be willing to fix it."

Specifically, Panetta is referring to sharply rising premiums and increased deductibles for people who pay for their own insurance. "That is an area where I believe Democrats have to acknowledge that and have to accept that, and make that part of their messaging," said Panetta.

"They really do. Not just accessibility, it's got to be affordability. It bemuses me why they are not taking a stronger stance on that." During his campaign and since he's been elected, Panetta said he's talked to small business owners and individuals who have said that the ACA has "just gotten too damn expensive."

"You can't exclude a certain segment of our society that is working their tails off and it feels like their getting screwed over" because of high healthcare premiums, he said. Working across the aisle, he said, is the only way Congress will be able to come up with a plan that is successful.

"Solutions will not come from just one person or party, but should be a bipartisan collaboration," he said. "That's the only way that real, sustainable improvements can be made to our nation's healthcare system."

He pointed to Democrats' failure to include Republicans with the creation of the Affordable Care Act as an example of the challenge of one party going it alone. "Look, I wasn't there in 2010 when the ACA was passed," he said. "You don't hear anything good about the fact that it was kind of crammed through in a partisan fashion."

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan about Democrats' "willingness to work together on bipartisan solutions,"

Panetta said. "If we want to improve health care, we'll need to develop proposals together, hold hearings and markups, and get a proper CBO score before we vote," he explained.

"We need to be more transparent." And, he said the conundrum over healthcare prompted the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which was formed early this year and is composed of 22 House members from each party, to visit the healthcare issue for the first time this week.

"We're meeting with our colleagues, some of whom are not involved in the caucus, but who have ideas they want to share, and [we are] listening to their proposed solutions," said Panetta, who is part of the group, which was set to discuss the issue Thursday.

As to President Donald Trump's proposal Tuesday to allow the ACA to simply collapse before coming up with a replacement, Panetta called it a "flippant" response.

"Even suggesting it creates uncertainty in the marketplace," he said. But "just because the majority failed to pass a different healthcare bill this time doesn't mean that Congress can't work together and come up with improvements."