The race for the Senate seat currently held by appointed Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) should be one of the clearest contests between Wall Street and Main Street in the 2012 election. Challenger Rep. Shelley Berkley summed it up:
“Instead of focusing on job creation and getting our economy back on track, Washington Republicans like Dean Heller are spending their time pushing a radical social agenda that restricts access to basic women’s preventative health services,” said Berkley. “Voters will have a clear choice this election between my commitment to putting Nevadans back to work and Dean Heller’s attacks on women’s healthcare and pro-Wall Street agenda.” [WashoeDems]
Big Pharma The only quibble with Berkley’s assessment might be that it isn’t just women’s health care that’s gotten short shrift from Senator Heller. Climbing into the Not-So-Wayback-Machine to January 12, 2007 we find then Representative Heller voting against H.R. 4, a bill which would have allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate for prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical corporations. It really doesn’t do to decry “out of control government spending” on one hand, and then vote against measures which would decrease spending on the other. Representative Berkley (D-NV1) voted in favor of the cost reduction measure. [PVS]
Picking Up The SCHIPS Senator Heller’s opposition to SCHIP shouldn’t be forgotten either. Heller voted against H.R. 3162 on August 1, 2007, a bill to reauthorize the popular children’s health care program. When the topic came up again on September 25, 2007 (H.R. 976) then Representative Heller voted against it one more time. Heller found it acceptable to vote against a federal contribution of $2.10 for every dollar Nevada appropriated for its Check Up and Medicaid programs, and against $373 million for children’s health care coverage in a five year period. This might not have been problematic except that in 2007 Nevada had 106,244 uninsured children, 2/3rds of whom would have been eligible for the program. [Families USA pdf] Representative Berkley voted in favor of reauthorizing the SCHIP program on August 1, and again on September 25th. [PVS] When it came time to vote to over-ride the Bush White House veto of H.R. 976 Representative Heller voted with the administration, Representative Berkley voted to over-ride the veto. [October 18, 2007]
The question of providing health care for children bounced back again on October 25, 2007 in the form of H.R. 3963, and again Representative Heller voted against it. The bill passed the House on a 265-142 vote, with Representative Berkley voting in favor of the reauthorization. Once again Congress reauthorized the program and one again President Bush vetoed it. Representative Heller voted to sustain the veto on January 23, 2008. Representative Berkley voted to over-ride.
The SCHIP subject re-emerged on January 14, 2009, again Representative Heller voted against reauthorizing the children’s health care program, and again Representative Berkley voted in favor. [H.R. 2] Representative Heller’s stalwart position against reauthorizing a program to assist families with children who have serious medical issues should be crystal clear. Heller joined those House Republicans who argued that the SCHIP program was an unnecessary tax burden on cigarette manufacturers, and would cause families to forgo the purchase of health insurance coverage for their children. [DB 1/2008] Representative Berkley’s support for helping a family of four (earning about $46,000 annually) with medical expenses should be equally clear.
Mental One portion of H.R. 1424 stated: “States that group health insurance plans offering mental health and substance abuse treatment must offer such coverage with financial requirements and treatment limitations that are no more restrictive than those associated with the medical and surgical coverage provided by the plan.” In short, group health plans should cover treatment for mental health problems. On March 5, 2008 Representative Heller voted “no” while Representative Berkley voted “yes.”
Health Care Reform Senator Heller has made no secret of his opposition to the health care reforms enacted in the Affordable Care Act, and Representative Berkley has made no secret of her support for the following provisions:
# Health care insurance corporations must provide preventive health care services at no cost in the plans they market to customers. (Mammograms, prostate cancer screening, etc.)
# Health insurance corporations may no longer deny coverage to youngsters under the age of 19 for “pre-existing” conditions.
# Health insurance corporations may no longer rescind coverage because a person made an honest mistake on an application.
# We have the right to choose the doctor we want from our plan’s network or seek emergency care at a hospital outside of our health plan’s network.
# Health insurance corporations may no longer offer plans with lifetime limits on coverage.
# The reforms require that health care insurance corporations spend at least 80% of their premium dollars on actual health care.
# The law requires that health care insurance providers be able to justify any rate increase of more than 10%.
Representative Berkley is being entirely too kind. Senator Heller doesn’t merely object to women’s preventative health care services — he objects to more affordable health care for the elderly taking expensive prescription drugs, for children in middle class families who have serious medical conditions, for families trying to cope with the expenses for a member with mental health concerns, for people denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, for people whose coverage was dropped when they became ill, for people who have long-term medical needs because of accident or illness.
Nevada voters may well have a choice in 2012 between accepting highly generalized complaints about “socialized medicine” (read: pro-insurance corporation positions) from Senator Heller, and specific health care measures designed to support middle class families and their health care needs as advocated by Representative Berkley.
Desert Beacon 