Gingrey the same as he’s always been

Recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog pieces by Jim Galloway purport to provide “an eye-opener” about “a changed Phil Gingrey” concerning the Affordable Care Act.

But I haven’t changed. I embrace the same Republican principles I’ve always held.

Galloway did correctly quote my recent blog in which I said my former colleagues in Congress should “retain, repair and revise” the ACA.

As for the retain part, going back to a 2010 interview with CNN I supported keeping many provisions of “Obamacare,” including adult children on their parents’ insurance and exchanges for low-income Americans.

As for the repair part, insurers are leaving one state after another. It would be cruel now to let insurance markets collapse, leaving millions without access to insurance coverage.

And as for the revise part, it is the likely path because today’s slim Republican Senate majority and strict Senate reconciliation rules makes complete repeal of the entire ACA seemingly impossible. If much of the current law is entrenched, Republicans should now make sound and principled revisions, while, as we physicians say, “doing no harm.”

Principles must be applied to changing circumstances. So I’m the same Phil Gingrey I’ve always been. Just ask my wife. J. PHILLIP GINGREY, M.D., FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS