McClintock says public option a threat to health care

Rep. Tom McClintock

“It’s more than a slippery slope. It sets in motion a one-size-fits-all health-care system,” the Republican lawmaker said. “I am highly skeptical that a government takeover of health care will improve anything.”

President Obama’s proposed health-care reform would put the nation on course for a government takeover of health care in five years, Rep. Tom McClintock said after a recent visit to Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley.

  “It’s more than a slippery slope, it sets in motion a one-size-fits-all health-care system,” the Republican lawmaker said. “I am highly skeptical that a government takeover of health care will improve anything.”

    McClintock said he favors a bill that offers tax credits or vouchers as a way to provide coverage for the uninsured and to allow those with coverage to shop around.

  The public option, which gives Americans the choice of getting insurance through the government, would undermine private insurers and encourage employers to drop coverage now being offered to workers, McClintock said.

  McClintock, who narrowly defeated Democrat Charlie Brown in the 4^th Congressional District race, also defended his votes against the federal stimulus bill and the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, which was designed to prevent foreclosures.

  The stimulus bill is too costly and only benefits government, he said, while he felt the mortgage legislation would only encourage property owners from making their payments so they could qualify for the program.

  McClintock cited the mortgage crisis while explaining why he’s yet to buy a house in the district, one of the largest in the state.

  The lawmaker, who represented a Southern California district in the Assembly before he ran for Congress last fall, said his Elk Grove house is “upside down” and that he can’t buy another home until that situation changes.