By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Passing health care reform in Congress will take bipartisan effort, despite some talk by Democrats in favor of going it alone, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, said Thursday as forces on both sides of the issue pressed the debate in Arkansas.

“It’s going to be hard to get a health reform bill through the House that does not include a public option and difficult to get a bill through the Senate that does include public option,” Ross told reporters before his address to a convention of community health center officials.

“To get a bill through the Senate, I think it’s going to have to be bipartisan, and I think that’s a good thing,” he said. “This is a long way from being over.”

Also Thursday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele took take part in a closed roundtable discussion on health care reform at state GOP headquarters in Little Rock, and medical professionals expressed support for health care reform during a news conference hosted by Organizing for America, a grassroots project of the Democratic National Committee, at a neighborhood clinic in Little Rock.

“It was exciting to hear from business owners and doctors and average folk who are, I think, legitimately concerned about where we are and what we’re doing and the direction the president is taking the country,” he said, adding he plans to take the comments and thoughts from the approximately 30 people back to Republicans in Congress.

Some of the concerns raised by both Democrats and Republicans during the closed-door meeting, Steele said, included “a general consensus around, they’re wanting members of Congress to get something done.”

Steele also said several expressed concern about the “heavy propaganda” surrounding the issue and he later said that both supporters and opponents of health reform were guilty of providing some of the misinformation.

“I’ve never said that there isn’t hyperbole on both sides and I think the American people have accurately reflected that concern,” he said.

Steele went on to say he was tired of Democrats blaming Republicans for delays in getting health care reform passed.

“This is being pushed back on Republicans — we’re the party of ‘no,’ we’re creating the obstacles, we’re not playing fair, we’re not being bipartisan,” he said, adding that doesn’t make sense because Democrats have majorities in both the Senate and House.

“You’ve got the votes, and in Washington … it’s all about who has the votes,” he said. “You want it done, pass the bill.”

The Republican Party chairman said Democrats are afraid to vote along party lines because “they know it’s poisonous and they know the American people will not tolerate it and they’re scrambling now and they’re beginning to turn on each other because they’ve got a big problem, a political one, and they can’t solve it.

“The American people through town halls and other venues are expressing, more directly, what they want,” he said.

In a statement issued Thursday, state Democratic Party Chairman Todd Turner criticized Steele — not for his position on health care but for his position on the federal stimulus package. Turner said he hoped Steele would visit Philander Smith College in Little Rock, which received $500,000 in stimulus money.

“If it were up to Chairman Steele, these and all the other projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act wouldn’t exist. I can only hope Chairman Steele will take some time away from his fundraising trip to see first-hand the importance of the help for Arkansas that he opposed,” Turner said.

Steele said he plans to visit Philander Smith in September.

Ross, the leader of the Blue Dog Democrats, a group of conservative House Democrats that successfully postponed a House vote on any health care reform bill until September, complained Thursday that the Obama administration is “giving mixed signals” on whether it supports a public option to compete with private insurers in providing health coverage.

“One day it sounds like they are for (public option) and one day it sounds like they are not,” he said.

The administration has said recently that overhauling the nation’s health care system did not necessarily have to include a public option.

Ross said he would support a reform measure offering numerous options, as long as it did not mirror Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor, elderly and disabled.

Earlier Thursday, Rep. Gene Shelby, D-Hot Springs, an emergency room physician, was one of several health care professionals who spoke at a news conference hosted by Organizing for America. Shelby described the nation’s health care system as “broken” and in need of a fix.

Shelby related an emergency room case he recently worked involving a 55-year-old woman who had a history of high blood pressure and coronary artery disease but had no insurance, could not afford her medications and had had a stent inserted earlier this year.

“She’d actually gone up to our charitable clinic (in Hot Springs) to see if she could get some medicine, but she was having this terrible chest pain, her blood pressure was real high, so they had to send her to our emergency department by ambulance,” Shelby said. “We had to treat her in the emergency department, stabilized (her), got her blood pressure under control. But we had to put her in the hospital because of the situation. If she had had access to just some simple medication, all of that would have been prevented.”

Also Thursday:
—The state GOP said it will host a series of public town hall meetings on the issue, beginning Saturday in Benton. Other meetings were scheduled for Jonesboro on Monday, Russellville on Wednesday and in Hot Springs at a date yet to be set.
—The Washington-based group Americans for Prosperity said its “Hands off My Healthcare” bus tour will make stops in 16 Arkansas towns, Monday through Wednesday, starting with a stop in Beebe.
—The Arkansas Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights said it will host a roundtable discussion with doctors, medical professionals and business owners Monday in Little Rock.
—The University of Central Arkansas in Conway said it will host a public forum on health care featuring U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Little Rock, on Aug. 27.

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Arkansas News Bureau reporter John Lyon contributed to this report

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On the Net:
schedule for bus tour
www.joinpatientsfirst.com/bus-tour#ak