CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: Protestors favoring health care reform picketed the University Club in Midtown this week as U.S. Sen. Bob Corker spoke inside to the Memphis Rotary Club. Corker said he supports the idea that health care should be reformed, but differs with President Obama on the government’s role. -- PHOTO BY BILL DRIES

U.S. Senator Bob Corker is preparing for a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan next week as he runs a gauntlet of town hall meetings this week in 28 counties across the state.

Corker is balancing the visit to an actual war zone with the political war zone over health care reform during the August congressional recess because of his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His trip abroad will take him to the region of Afghanistan known for its poppy fields and connection to the world’s illicit drug trade.

The town hall meetings on health care reform began Tuesday in Covington with a standing-room-only crowd.

Corker has encountered differing opinions but not quite the level of emotion that U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, found at last weekend’s Downtown session on health care reform. Several hundred people showed up for Cohen’s town hall and there were plenty of raised voices on different sides of the issue.

Corker told a group of more than 150 people at the Memphis Rotary Club this week that the town hall meetings belie a level of bipartisanship on the issue still possible among members of Congress.

Now you see it ...

A group of 20 protestors from the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center picketed outside the University Club as Corker spoke inside. Corker said they were polite and orderly and he added that he agreed with some of the sentiments on some of the signs calling for reforms in the current system of public and private methods of providing health care.?

“I think we need health care reform,” Corker said, relating health care budget concerns he dealt with as state finance commissioner during the first term of former Gov. Don Sundquist. “I believe that there are pragmatic things we can do in a bipartisan way to go a ways down the road toward solving the problem.”

Corker warned that government controls make many citizens uneasy about the prospect of measures such as rationing health care.

“I think what people in this country are concerned about is that some nameless bureaucrat decides whether they are going to get a hip replacement or a knee replacement or whatever,” he replied in response to a specific question about health care rationing. “But the fact is that … insurance companies today ration care to some degree. I think the American people are more comfortable with the ability to actually choose which company based on services. … I just think our American citizens have more faith in folks that they have a contract with rather than a nameless bureaucrat.”

Corker said the bill that is still awaiting debate and a vote on the House floor after the recess isn’t politically viable. The bill has been the focus of much of the emotion seen in the town hall meetings across the country.

“There really isn’t a bill, OK? Let’s face it,ß” is how he described the prospects of the House proposal. “It will not stand the test of time.”

Other ideas

Once Congress returns to Washington, Corker suggested citizens should pay close attention to the Senate Finance Committee’s discussion on using $410 billion from the Medicare program to leverage a new health care entitlement program.

The plan has drawn support from the American Association of Retired Persons.

“I think the AARP has truly acted … like a political shill on this,” Corker commented. “I think they’ve thrown their constituents under the bus on this.”

Corker said he is interested in exploring an option that would make only the first $17,000 in health insurance benefits annually exempt from taxes but allowing employees a tax deduction. Taxes on benefits over that amount, discounting an inflationary adjustment, could raise $350 billion by Corker’s estimate.

“Should there be some limit on the amount of tax-free benefits that one receives as an employee?” Corker asked rhetorically.

He also threw out the idea of an exchange for small-business owners to help them provide health care insurance at rates competitive with larger companies.

Corker said he disagrees in “major, major ways” with President Barack Obama’s direction on health care reform, but respects the office of president.

“Our goal is to create access and also deal with cost – none of which, by the way, is being actually addressed with all of the things we have seen.”

He also said he hopes health care reform legislation will not include employer mandates.