Hill: Health reform bill will take years to implement

Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer

The health reform bill “will look a lot different 60 days from now,” and when it becomes law it probably will take about 10 years to fully implement, U.S. Rep. Baron Hill said Wednesday in Madison.

“I look at this as a 10-year bill,” Hill said. The final version probably will contain a one- to two-year delay for it to go into effect to “get the basic structure in place,” he said.

“I think we’re going to tinker around the edges the next 10 years to get it right,” said Hill, a Democrat from Seymour, who is in his fifth term representing the Indiana 9th Congressional District.

Hill is a leader of the Blue Dog Democrats, a 52-member coalition of conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was one of seven members of a Blue Dog task force on health reform.

“I’ve picked up a few ideas that I’ve got to take back to Washington and make sure they get in the bill,” Hill said.

Hill said he has received six or seven good ideas for changes, including one from an Indiana University professor that would replace the “public option” or government-run program with vouchers that people could use in the marketplace to pay for services.

Hill said that as he has talked about the health reform bill to groups in his district, it “has been getting very favorable response once they hear what’s in it.”

Unlike some of his House colleagues, Hill is not having town hall meetings after other congressmen were met by protesters who drowned them out and disrupted their presentations. Instead, he has met with chambers of commerce, civic clubs and small groups of invited guests.

Hill told the Washington Post this week: “I’m trying to control the event. What I don’t want to do is create an opportunity for the people who are political terrorists to blow up the meeting and not try to answer thoughtful questions.”

But word had spread that Hill would be at the Red Pepper for a closed meeting, and opponents of some of the provisions being considered gathered in a parking lot across the street. Some in the group said they were there primarily because they were offended by what Hill told the Post.

Red Pepper owners John and Lori Heitz, mindful of the hostility at health reform protests around the nation and with a shouting match going on across the street, canceled the booking for the room while Hill was on his way to Madison from Seymour. Several Madison police officers, including Chief John Wallace and Assistant Chief Yancy Denning, went to the parking lot after receiving a report about the shouting match.

The group of about two dozen in the parking lot was slow to disperse, as people said one of Hill’s aides was still across the street, and they suspected Hill would arrive after the protesters left.

When word was spread among the group that Hill wasn’t coming, one of the leaders of the protesters, Rick Reuss, told the group that each person should go into the Red Pepper and buy food or a cold drink to let the Heitzes know that it wasn’t them or their business that was being protested.

Also, those claims that only the conservatives have hot ladies is a bunch of crap. Jane and Slinkerwink are plenty hot – and most importantly they’re extraordinarily intelligent, which I can’t say about Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Sarah Palin, or Michelle Bachmann.