Cassidy sets health-care meeting

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 30, 2009 - Page: 5A

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Despite missteps by some key Republicans and party losses the last few years, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy said Monday that the GOP still has a strong future ahead.

The Baton Rouge Republican also discussed health-care issues with the Press Club of Baton Rouge. He is hosting a town-hall meeting, primarily to discuss health-care issues, at 5:30 p.m. today at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.

Cassidy said the Republican Party is still united on core issues, such as being against the stimulus package and abortion. Republicans have multiple plans for health care.

Meanwhile, he said, the public is watching the national debt increase under President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

“The American people are concerned about spending, as rightly they should be,” Cassidy said.

In May, a Gallup Poll showed Republican Party affiliation among Americans has declined in nearly every major demographic subgroup.

The most recent blow to the GOP came when South Carolina’s Republican governor admitting cheating on his wife over the Father’s Day weekend.

Cassidy said after his talk that he has not looked at poll data but believes the public will not paint the GOP with a wide brush.

“For 20 years, I’ve busted my rear end trying to bring health care to the people in my district,” said Cassidy, a gastroenterologist at Earl K. Long Medical Center.

A person’s life’s work is a better testament to who they are than a position statement, he said.

Cassidy said he has not yet seen a real solution for health care but political proposals “under the fig leaf” of private enterprise and access for all.

Obama is proposing to increase the number of people eligible for Medicaid, the government’s health insurance plan, Cassidy said. Most states are having financial problems with Medicaid, he said.

“That means we would increase federal and state liability as we grow a program that’s already making us go bankrupt,” he said.