by Rachael Shankle
photography by Jaime Turner

Healthcare reform hasn’t been so passionately debated since the Clinton Administration’s proposed package was declared dead in 1994.

More than 15 years later, with skyrocketing premiums and an aging baby boomer population, providing affordable healthcare to all Americans has once again taken center stage. The government, much like physician Harpal Mangat, maintains reform will not only make care affordable, but it will make insurers more accountable and extend coverage to the millions of uninsured.

But opponents of the mandate, such as Mark Kreslins, say the proposed plan is just another way the government is inappropriately and illegally meddling in the private lives of its citizens. It’s a question of individual rights, many opponents say, and Congress has no right or authority to force citizens to pay for something they don’t want.

We asked them the question:

What is your viewpoint on the new healthcare reform bill, and how do you think it will affect businesses?

Point: Reform enables everyone to have access to healthcare.

Harpal S. Mangat
MD, Internist with practices in Frederick and Clarksburg

No bill is perfect, but the new healthcare reform bill is a good start and comes at a very critical time. We have 30 million people uninsured and another 30 million baby boomers coming into Medicare. The current system is not effective in helping people to take better care of themselves. We do have excellent acute care, yes, but it doesn’t address the need and importance for long-term care. We have people with extended stays in hospitals at a higher cost; had they been treated with preventive care at an earlier stage, they would have been less likely to need hospitalization. The tragedy here is that most people don’t really understand the dynamics of healthcare.

We have a lot of people who can’t get insurance because of their pre-existing conditions. Many people can’t get good quality insurance without having to pay a very high price. This bill prevents the “cherry picking” that insurance companies are currently doing. It’s a battle almost every time with insurance carriers for me to do what’s best for the patient, so that’s one of the ways things will change with the new bill.

The number one reason healthcare reform is good is because it will enable everyone to have access to healthcare. Reform will encourage competitive pricing among insurance companies, bringing down the cost of healthcare so that the average person can afford to pay.

This will give smaller businesses the ability to compete for better healthcare plans. In the current market, if you’re a small business, you don’t have the same advantages of a major corporation with more buying power. So, another objective of the bill is to give smaller businesses the ability to compete for better healthcare plans on the same level as large corporations.

CounterPoint: Does everyone have the right to healthcare? No.

Mark Kreslins
President and owner of Home Care Solutions, based in Monrovia

You really can’t deal with the pragmatic realities of healthcare reform until you address the more pressing constitutional and philosophical issues. There is absolutely no provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the authority to mandate healthcare. Does everyone have the right to healthcare? No, I don’t think they do. If you go back to the founding of our country, the founders recognized essentially three rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nowhere in there did it say anything about healthcare, yet we create these perceived rights. I don’t acknowledge healthcare as a right. I have a right to be as unhealthy as I want to be and as healthy as I want to be. Our liberty is being taken away from us. We have lost our right to choose not to have health insurance.

As a business owner, forcing me to provide health insurance to my staff affects my growth. I could be a bigger jobs-generator in our community if I had the ambition to grow. I want to stay under 50 employees because why deal with the bureaucratic headache if I don’t have to? Many businesses have stopped their expansion plans because there are so many regulatory burdens to being a business owner. At the end of the day, this costs us direct money. So, this is just another in a long list of other regulatory burdens on small business that is going to make it harder for us to do business and make money. Every business owner I know is deeply offended by the heavy hand of the government requiring us to do something we don’t want to do.

by Linda Alexander
Photography by Bill Millios

We asked them the question: How do you think the issues of immigration and immigration reform affect the country’s business culture, our local business community and our society?

Immigration reform is a hot topic.  Jorge Ribas with the Mid Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce believes we must learn from other countries and create a path to citizenship for all immigrants currently in the United States. Steve Berryman, commercial construction estimator and local Frederick commentator, believes that the benefits of citizenship belong to those who have gone the traditional, legal path to American citizenship.

Point: Greed Drives Illegal Immigration

Jorge Ribas: President, Mid Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Across this country, the need for manpower is critical. We need to have people who drive tractors and equipment, and put pipes in the ground. Most Americans don’t want these jobs. We need comprehensive immigration reform that looks at our national interests first, before setting long-term goals.

In the 1940s, braceros were young Mexicans imported by the U.S. government with promises of Social Security retirement.  Workers were needed to produce food. These immigrants were legal. They worked here and fought for this country in World War II. We intentionally brought in immigrants to do these jobs.

When the government decided they no longer needed them, they were kicked out, benefits unpaid, which is reprehensible for a country founded on respect for the law.

Who brings in illegal immigrants? Builders who pay low wages and maximize profits. Building costs go down, but the price of a new home goes up. Greed drives illegal immigration. The building and construction industry is making money on the backs of undocumented workers who discover it’s complicated and costly to become legal once they are here.

The government recognizes that the immigration process we now have is broken, but Congress hasn’t prescribed legislation to fix it. I predict this year we’ll have immigration reform, but we must proceed in an orderly manner to ensure we are doing it effectively. We’re living in a competitive, globalized market and world— we have to be sure we are on the cutting edge of immigration.

CounterPoint: Blanket Amnesty Gives Zero Value to Citizenship

Steve Berryman: Frederick Commentator and Construction Estimator

I view immigration reform as a moral issue more than a business issue. Of course, good immigration reform would level the playing field and allow the workforce we need in this country to continue. But my real concern regarding this issue is blanket amnesty. We tried amnesty once before under President Reagan, which is, in essence, the root of the problem today. Reagan’s program was not followed up by securing our borders. Therefore, friends and family of those who received amnesty under Reagan’s rule overstayed their legal visas.

Blanket amnesty gives zero value to citizenship within the United States of America. I ask—is blanket amnesty fair to the folks who went through cultural assimilation, training, history, learning the traditions of America, and spending time and money to do it legally? If the immigration system seems broken, it’s only because the system is overloaded with too many people trying to become citizens. America is such a coveted destination because of our schools, medicine, quality of life, and mostly because of our entitlement programs. The word on the street in many countries seems to be “come to America because the poor in America live better than the rich in our country.” A poor person in America still has a television and a cell phone. Both sides of the aisle are to blame. In my opinion, it’s a moral issue more than a business issue.

by Meghan Gourley
Photography by Bill Millios

We asked them the question: What are your top concerns regarding the Gaithersburg West Master Plan?

Dubbed the “21st-century blueprint”for more than 4,300 acres of land along the I-270 corridor, the Gaithersburg West Master Plan continues to be hotly debated among businesses, government officials and citizens. The plan could bring up to 60,000 additional jobs to upper Montgomery County and potentially become what Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce President Marilyn Balcombe (right) calls a critical mass of industry for the biotech sector. But for residents like Donna Baron (left), coordinator of the Gaithersburg, North Potomac and Rockville Coalition, the plan is too much growth of high-rise buildings, traffic congestion and the final destruction of the once sprawling farmland in the upcounty.

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Frederick City is poised to grow by more than 500 acres thanks to the recent annexation of two area farms, but the move remains controversial. While development advocate Bruce Dean, (left) a lawyer specializing in annexations with McEvoy & Dean, and other supporters say expanding the city’s boundaries is key to attracting good jobs, opponents such as Janice Wiles of Friends of Frederick County (right) worry about the impact of that expansion on schools, fire protection and other public services.

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