Republicans put spotlight on Obamacare critics in Georgia | Reuters

(Reuters) – Republicans went to the American South on Monday to press their opposition to President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law in a U.S. congressional hearing that the law’s supporters called a one-sided political attack.

The hearing, chaired by Republican Representative Rob Woodall of Georgia, heard from witnesses picked by the panel’s Republicans who said that the healthcare law – intended to help millions of uninsured and under-insured people get affordable medical insurance – actually will raise insurance costs and reduce coverage choices for many people in rural America.

Michael Boyette, a 28-year-old businessman from Ellijay, Georgia, said his insurance premium was increasing by almost $200 per month for his family of three.

“You may think that we went with a more expensive plan or have gotten more coverage,” Boyette said during the hearing, the second of four events on the Affordable Care Act to be held outside Washington by the Republican-led House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“In fact, we have not,” Boyette said. “We have less coverage than before, also higher out-of-pocket expense and a premium that has risen 65 percent. This is not affordable to me.”

Supporters of the law, also known as Obamacare, complained that the hearing was merely the latest attempt by Republicans to denigrate it.

Carolyn Reed-Smith said she came from Spartanburg, South Carolina, hoping to speak about the benefits of Obamacare.

“They gave only one side of the story and were not looking for the other side,” Reed-Smith said.

DeLane Adams, from the Atlanta area, had hoped to address the hearing to urge the lawmakers to press Georgia’s Republican governor, Nathan Deal, to allow the expansion of the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor in the state as permitted under Obamacare. Deal, like some other Republican governors, has declined to do so.

“If this was a true hearing, they should let everyone speak on both sides,” Adams said.

HealthCare.gov, the U.S. government’s web portal for offering private health coverage to uninsured Americans in 36 of the 50 states under Obamacare, has been at the center of a political fire storm over technical problems that overwhelmed its October 1 launch and have dogged the system ever since.

via Republicans put spotlight on Obamacare critics in Georgia | Reuters.