Olszewski: Will he vote the party line?

I don’t know Dr. Olszewski, never met the man, and do not live in his district. I am all for citizen legislators. But I do have a problem with him that Dr. Bucacek pointed out regarding his stance on Medicaid expansion.

He apparently supported it when asked to do so by the Montana Medical Association only to now say he is against it. He justified his position by stating (Daily Inter Lake, May 9), “I believe that if you belong to an organization, you support it.” Does that mean that if you belong to the Republican Party you vote for anything your party leadership asks you to? In my opinion, that is the biggest problem with our political system right now. We need more politicians who will stand firm on what they believe rather than follow the party line.

As for the expansion of Medicaid, as a physician, I have been against the wholesale expansion of a poor system in which many doctors refuse to participate because Medicaid reimbursement is well below private insurance or Medicare. Also, the generous federal support for the expansion will end after three years necessitating a rise in state taxes if the expanded program is to continue.

Rather, the Community Health Center system, a federally assisted program of 7,000 general medical and dental clinics throughout the United States (our local Health Department has one) where patients pay a reasonable fee based on their income is a much better idea. Patients need to have some skin in the game or they don’t properly value the services they receive. These clinics, in my opinion, could be expanded for the poor and moderately poor and combined with low-cost catastrophic and specialty-care coverage administered by local organizations like health departments to provide a better system of care.

Any program our incompetent federal government runs is stuffed with fraud, waste, and abuse for which our politicians seem to have no appetite to do anything about. As Dr. Ben Carson, one of the more independent thinkers in the political arena these days, says — we need to think outside the box.

So, Dr. Olszewski, I suggest rather than supporting an organization that, in my opinion as a conservative physician, is too liberal for my values, you listen to Dr. Carson and try to be a tad more creative.

P. David Myerowitz is a resident of Columbia Falls