ATWATER – The reality of the nation’s health care crisis has struck hard at the Bellevue Bowl, a bar and bowling alley that has been owned by the same family for 50 years. <\/p>\n
Owner Bob Cardoza got word that the premium for the health insurance policy for his family and a few key employees is jumping 75 percent. He made sure his congressman heard about it. <\/p>\n
The congressman happens to be Bob’s younger brother, Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat from Merced. <\/p>\n
Cardoza and his fellow Central Valley Democrat, Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno, are two of the holdouts on historic health care legislation heading for a pivotal vote later this week. <\/p>\n
They should be among the first to sign on to the bill, given the need for health care in their districts. That they are mulling it over means they are torn or very savvy – or, most likely, that they are both. <\/p>\n
“How we pay for it is of grave concern to me,” Cardoza told me on Tuesday. “My constituents are lukewarm because if it costs them a dime more, they’re stretched.” <\/p>\n
Cardoza is seeking a medical school at UC Merced. Costa is using the opportunity to leverage assurances from the Obama administration of more water from the federal government for farmers in his district. <\/p>\n
The brinksmanship will continue up to the vote. But it shouldn’t. There may be no part of the nation that needs a health care overhaul more than the San Joaquin Valley. Both congressmen surely know that. <\/p>\n
Cardoza, in particular, is steeped in the issue. His wife is a physician, and he has been following the issue since he was a Capitol Hill intern 30 years ago and was directed to monitor health care hearings held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. <\/p>\n
Cardoza’s district covers one of the most distressed regions in America, from Stockton, a center of the home foreclosure crisis, south to Modesto, Madera and Fresno. <\/p>\n
Huge numbers of his constituents are out of work. Unemployment rates in counties he represents range from 16.6 percent to 21.7 percent. Nearly 24 percent of the people in Madera County population have no health insurance. Teen birth rates are high and a Merced hospital recently shuttered its neonatal unit. <\/p>\n
But make a few stops along Highway 99, and it becomes clear why the vote is tough for a San Joaquin Valley Democrat. <\/p>\n
Danny Prather used to have insurance, back when he worked as an auto mechanic and later a cable splicer. <\/p>\n
Now he is MIA. The term doesn’t mean he is missing in action, though there are tragic similarities. He is a medically indigent adult, meaning he has no health coverage, and must go to the place of last resort, the Health Service Agency clinic of Stanislaus County. <\/p>\n
Prather has diabetes and depression and has had heart attacks and strokes. He is 55. A friend lets him sleep on her couch. Otherwise, he’d be at the homeless encampment over by the creek bed. <\/p>\n
“I thought about killing myself,” Prather said, standing in front of the sprawling clinic in an old hospital across from a cemetery on Scenic Drive in Modesto. <\/p>\n
Prather would benefit from the health care bill. His bills would be paid partly by the federal government, and he would have greater access to care. But like many potential beneficiaries, he shrugged. <\/p>\n
“It’s just another way for politicians to control us,” Prather said. <\/p>\n
Back in Atwater, at the Bellevue Bowl, Ronald Roberts sips an O’Doul’s. He has a pacemaker and survived prostate cancer. At 74, the retired Air Force sergeant doesn’t worry about health insurance for himself. <\/p>\n
But politicians, including Cardoza, need to do what is best for the people. “We’re the richest country in the world and we don’t take care of our own,” he said. <\/p>\n
Then there is Bellevue Bowl owner Bob Cardoza. He worries about what he will do if he can’t find a new policy, and must come up with the extra 75 percent. Business is not exactly booming. <\/p>\n
“What I see really concerns me,” the congressman’s older brother says. <\/p>\n
As the vote nears, Pelosi is lining up votes. If Cardoza doesn’t vote for the bill, he can kiss his coveted spot on the House Rules Committee goodbye. <\/p>\n
Obama offers a sweetener – money in his budget that could be used to create a medical school at UC Merced, in the heart of Cardoza’s district. That too could disappear. <\/p>\n
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is airing ads in his district, warning that the legislation will drive up prices and cost jobs. <\/p>\n
But a congressman’s job security is no excuse. The vote may be tough. But there may not be another opportunity like this again for a generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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