Posted on 12/23/2009 1:08:30 PM PST by Sub-Driver
December 23, 2009 Reid: Real People Understand The Urgency For Health Reform
Washington, D.C.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor this afternoon. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
The health care votes we have held this week have been procedural in nature. Each has been a party-line vote. And much of this debate has focused on politics.
But health reform is not about procedure, or partisanship, or politics.
It is about people. People like the thousands who write us every day. A small, small fraction of those letters are right here on my desk.
Each one of these letters represents a story, a tragedy, a life, a death a person. People who wake up every morning and struggle to get health care or struggle to hold on to it. People who lie awake every night second-guessing the agonizing decisions they have to make about what to sacrifice just to stay healthy.
Heres a letter that was written to Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania:
Dear Senator Casey: In a country like the United States, we shouldnt need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia.
Heres what another one of these letters says a plea that a father in North Las Vegas, Nevada sent to me:
Can you imagine what its like to have a doctor look you in the eye while you hold your one-year-old child and tell you that you will likely outlive your son? I am certain my story is not unique. But it is real.
Stop forcing Americans to use the most expensive point of service the emergency room to get what the system wont give them.
Lets make all Americans equal in the eyes of health care. Please.
This is not about the number of pages in this bill. It is about the number of people whom this bill will help.
Dingy, I don’t spell ‘URGENT’ four years from now.
They need to put down the crack pipe.
If there were urgency, it would lead to coverage within 90 days.
Actually, real people understand the urgency of getting those criminal looters out of office ASAP.
“equal in the eyes of health care”
I want your HC, Harr.
Yeah! To hell with giving to charities voluntarily! Let the government pay for that!
Reid said that two people die from no health care every ten minutes - but - this HC is four years out ... so how many people will die from now until it’s implemented .....
We need it “now” before they are tossed out flat on their asses as they were in 1994 when they failed to pass (but did attempt to ram through) Hillarycare.
This guy is delusional.
Like something straight out of 1984.
The March of Dimes now prevents some birth defects through abortion.
Do they still take charitable contributions at checkout counters too?
Sounds like they’re worried.
Just under 440,000!
I understand the urgency... to get government out of American healthcare. Let’s see some tort reform, removing of state boundaries on insurance plans, and 90% of all Congresscritters out on their butts.
Dear Senator Casey: In a country like the United States, we shouldnt need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia.
No, we need a system where the money is taxed right out of one’s labor and diverted to ACORN and elections fraud years before a kid with leukemia is able to stand in line in government run health fiasco style.
He’s low.....
Reid is going to understand that real people don’t like mandatory health insurance when real people vote him out of office.
Article I submitted for an on-line publication:
Dear Congress:
Theres been a lot of speculation about the people who attend the town hall meetings, tea parties, or who marched on Washington. Weve been called right-wing fanatics, Nazis, and extremists by our own representatives and senators in an effort to brand us irrelevant. But, since none of those labels come close to who we really are, Im going to tell you a little about myself and my neighborhood to give you a snapshot of the rabble rousers that are causing all this unwelcome commotion.
I work in the IT field and probably make better than average money. I live in a 60-year old house, a ranch in a nice neighborhood. Being older, the house really needs new siding, the existing siding is buckling and starting to crack. I got an estimate and, with the garage, its around $8,000. I cant afford that right now so it will have to wait. I have another neighbor who needs a new window, hers is leaking. Its around $1,500 dollars for the window and repairs and has to be paid in cash so that too will have to wait. I took a walk in my neighborhood the other day and noticed a new red door on one of my neighbors home, long overdue but nice.
Thats when it struck me that while we struggle to scrape together the cash for a new window or door, you guys sit up there on Capitol Hill and throw hundreds of billions of dollars around like its loose change, each of you eager to add another few billion for some pet project in your district that will help your image and political career. How much has your reckless, selfish, immoral spending cost us? How much could we have done for our families and homes with the subsidies you gave other people for their old cars much less the stimulus, bank bailout, auto bailout, and other pending blockbusters?
Were the protestors, the people who need a new door or window, who want you to stop pushing us around, telling us what we can and cant have, how much of our hard-earned money youll let us keep, and even what doctors youll allow us to see. The people who are trying desperately to be heard by a government that arrogantly and steadfastly refuses to listen.
We didnt vote for a powerful leader when we elected you, we voted for a representative of the people back home in your district or state, not just those who can give you a plum committee chair or add millions to your war chest, but all of us. Yes, even the ones you dont personally like or those of us who dont agree with your ideals. You were elected to represent us, not to impose your will on us. I dont know when I started worrying about what my government is doing to me instead of for me but sadly, thats where we are.
So, who are we really, all these people who dare to show up at town hall meetings ostensibly being held for us to voice our concerns, who burn up your phone lines and fax lines with those annoying calls and emails, or who join the nationwide tea parties and marches with that irritating first amendment thing about the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Who are we? In the words of George Bailey:
Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.
Its a Wonderful Life.
Its us, Dear Congress, We the People
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