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Congressman Harper Addresses Health Summit at Mississippi College


Third District U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper of Pearl and Dr. Randy Easterling, medical director of the Marion Hill Chemical Dependency Unit in Vicksburg, spoke at the 2014 Mississippi Healthcare Reform Summit October 21. Harper and Dr. Easterling are Mississippi College graduates.

America’s Affordable Care Act suffers from steep costs, Third District U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper says.

Speaking to the Mississippi Healthcare Reform Summit on Tuesday, Harper said, “The Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable.”

While the federal act signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, has helped some Americans, “a lot of the costs are through the roof,” Harper told the fifth annual conference at Mississippi College.

A conservative Republican first elected to Congress in 2008, Harper seeks re-election on the November ballot. A Pearl attorney, Harper and his wife of 35 years, Sidney, are both Mississippi College graduates.

Harper is part of a growing number of nationwide critics of what many have termed Obama Care.

More than 10 million Americans have signed up for private health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the White House says. And the White House website calls it the most significant regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

The Affordable Care Act was among the hot topics discussed at the late October reform summit on the Clinton campus.

Dr. Randy Easterling, medical director of the Marion Hill Chemical Dependency Unit, who’s practiced family medicine in Vicksburg for more than 27 years, also took shots at President Obama’s signature legislation.

The Affordable Care Act, Easterling said, “is way too much, way too fast.”

He criticized the federal legislation as a “most expensive and most obtrusive bill” passed by Democrats in Congress with no bi-partisan support.

Easterling, who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at MC, as did Congressman Harper, tackled other subjects as he spoke to medical and business professionals.

In Mississippi and across the nation, “medicine is a huge economic engine,” he said in remarks at Anderson Hall. The University of Mississippi Medical Center, St. Dominic’s, Baptist Hospital, and the Central Mississippi Medical Center are enormous economic drivers in metro Jackson, Easterling noted.

“We are blessed with incredible healthcare facilities,” in Mississippi, Harper said.

Still, Mississippi has acute medical deficiencies. The state’s rate of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity are among the worst in the nation.

The University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson may need to attract a larger class of future physicians to help meet the needs.

In Congress, Harper has worked on a number of bills designed to improve patient care, including proposals on telemedicine.

“Let’s do things that are better for the patient,” Harper told the conference. And he added, with a smile, “I almost sound like a Democrat.”

Harper said he’s reached out across the political aisle to work with Vermont Democrat Peter Welch on telemedicine bills before Congress.

Other speakers at the conference included Lester Diamond, president of St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital, Dr. David Duddleston, vice president and medical director of the Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, Bobby Perkins, a business professor at Mississippi College and Dan Gibson, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Self-Insurers.

The conference brought together national experts and key state and business leaders to discuss pressing topics that businesses face in trying to manage healthcare costs.

The conference is a partnership of the Mississippi College School of Business and other organizations. They are: the Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, Mississippi Business Group on Health, Capital Area Human Resource Association and the Mississippi Society for Human Resource Management.