Candidates cover health care

POST FALLS – Candidates for North Idaho’s seat in Congress squared off on health care issues Wednesday, with all calling for big changes in the current system.

“The system is broke,” declared state Sen. Skip Brandt, R-Kooskia.

State Controller Keith Johnson said health care is a luxury – and people need to take responsibility for their own health. Former state Sen. Sheila Sorensen, R-Boise, a pediatric nurse practitioner, countered that she believes access to health care is a right.

“What we need to do, though, is to make insurance more affordable so that businesses can provide health coverage to more of the uninsured,” Sorensen said.

The candidates’ comments came at a forum at Post Falls High School marking the national “Cover the Uninsured Week.” The forum was sponsored by Kootenai Medical Center, the Dirne Community Health Center and the Coeur d’Alene Press, and featured all six GOP candidates, Coeur d’Alene Democrat Cecil Kelly, independent Dave Olson of St. Maries and Natural Law/United Party candidate Andy Hedden-Nicely.

State Rep. Bill Sali, R-Kuna, noted that while most health care costs are skyrocketing, laser eye surgery and cosmetic procedures are getting cheaper – because they’re generally not covered by health insurance. “That’s because they’re out there in the market,” he said. “If something is too expensive, you need competition to bring the price down.”

Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez said his idea for reducing health care costs is to stop paying for care for illegal immigrants, an issue he returned to on almost every question at the evening candidate forum.

“It is easier in this country to get health care if you’re an illegal alien than if you’re a combat veteran,” declared Vasquez, a twice-wounded Vietnam veteran. “That’s what needs to change.”

A crowd of more than 60 watched the forum, and some, like Margaret Grigsby, of Hayden, took notes.

Grigsby, who moved to Hayden from California several years ago, said she was impressed with Vasquez. “I think that he’s a true American and that his heart is in the right place,” she said.

Fred Ostermeyer, of Post Falls, said, “There were some extremes, which was to be expected. … I already knew how I was going to vote, and it just reinforced who I was going to vote for.”

Angela Cross, of Post Falls, said the forum was the first time she had seen all the candidates together. “Even the six Republicans were very distinctive,” she said. “They all had different ideas, which is good.”

Candidate Norm Semanko said he’s tired of hearing “gloom and doom” on health care and other issues. “We have a great health care system,” he said. The answer, he said, is to “quit taxing businesses so much” so the private sector has more ability to provide health coverage.

Kelly, a Coeur d’Alene businessman, and Hedden-Nicely were the only two of the nine candidates at the forum to favor a single-payer, universal health care system. “Three years ago I paid $5,000 for insurance,” Kelly said. “This year I paid $10,000.”

He told the crowd, “We have to have the federal government step in and do what’s right. Sometimes you have to have big government address big problems.”

That was definitely the minority view among the candidates at the forum, however. Johnson said, “I do not believe that health care is fundamentally a right. We have to provide for ourselves and not expect the government to provide for us.”

Olson said, “The only way to reform it is to send new people to Washington with new ideas.”

Semanko said a nation that dealt with the great Depression, World War II and the Cold War can solve its health care crisis. For small employers, he said, “We need to make that affordable to them through pooling, and that’s something Congress can do.”

Sorensen also backed a pooling approach for employers, along with health care savings accounts and tighter eligibility standards for government-run health care programs.

The candidates poked a little fun after Brandt declared himself “the North Idaho candidate.” Kelly noted that he’s lived in Coeur d’Alene for 60 years. Semanko noted that he’s a Lakeland High School graduate, and Olson said, “I’m from St. Maries, and the last time I checked that was in North Idaho too.”

Brandt, owner of a hardware store in tiny Stites, Idaho, later clarified, “I am the only Republican candidate in this race that resides and whose business is north of Idaho’s Mason-Dixon line.”

Olson startled some by accusing all the other candidates of violating federal election laws by not sending him notices of their candidacy, but Sali, an attorney, said afterward, “He’s wrong. He needs to correct that because that’s a serious charge.”

Sali said a candidate only needs to send notices to existing candidates at the time he files. So when he filed, he sent notices to Semanko, Sorensen and Brandt, who had filed ahead of him.

“He’s not right about his interpretation,” Sali said. “Nobody else needed to send him one – he was the last guy in.”

The six Republicans will face off in the May 23 primary election, as will Kelly and fellow Democrat Larry Grant, who declined the invitation to the forum. The others won’t be on the ballot until November.