Don’t mess with our health care.

At least that seems to be the message heard loudly and clearly from many Bee Countians, including the 35 protesters who visited U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa’s office on July 17 and the overwhelming majority of Chamber of Commerce members.

Led by Robert Bridge, the local citizens who participated in the latest TEA Party protest against the national health care bill spoke with Hinojosa via conference call and presented him with a list of 16 questions they wanted the congressman to answer before voting on the controversial issue.

The patriots’ concerns included how to pay for the expensive proposal, if Hinojosa would sign himself and his family up for the government-run plan and whether it would ultimately result in rationing health care for Americans.

Pam Priour Stuart, Bee County Chamber of Commerce president, this week announced the final results of a member survey in which 87.8 percent of its 300 business members strongly opposed “the proposed changes to our country’s health system through government interference and control.”

The resolution states that a national health care plan creates huge inequities among all hard-working wage earners in America, and will require huge tax increases in order to subsidize the planned program.

“The federal government should not be in the business of controlling and manipulating the health care system,” the Chamber believes, and “no confidence exists in the federal government’s ability to deliver the cost containments necessary to expand coverage of the uninsured.”

The private health care insurance industry has the existing tools to contain costs and the incentives necessary to improve quality and affordability for their customers, according to the resolution.

Under the bill, access to health care will become unreasonable to the highest degree, Chamber members said. “The rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long to receive treatment.”

The solution in health care reform lies in improving the quality and affordability of health care through market-based changes, and the focus on reforms should be directed in finding ways to make private health care coverage more affordable and to provide fair and adequate reimbursements for care, they agreed.

We believe it makes infinitely more sense to side with the small business community, rather than with a bunch of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a successful business, let alone the world’s finest health care system.