Posted on 03/13/2010 3:15:14 PM PST by rabscuttle385
I've been a Republican all my life, when I served in the Illinois legislature, when I worked for members of Congress and when I served in Congress. During the 2008 presidential election, I supported Republican Sen. John McCain. I have always been — and still am — a fiscal conservative, an advocate for a smart, but restrained, government.
For those reasons and others, most people wouldn't expect me to be an advocate for comprehensive health care reform. But the truth is, I believe there is no bigger issue to solve and no better chance to solve it than now.
If I were still a member of Congress, I would proudly vote for the bill that President Barack Obama is championing and I would urge my colleagues to do the same, not because I don't believe in fiscal discipline, but because I do.
We do not need to look that far down the road to see the pain that failure to pass health care reform will cause. Americans of every background, class, race and political persuasion are suffering. We have the best health care system in the world, yet more than 40 million Americans lack access to it, a reality that is morally reprehensible. Health care is an essential, as important as food, water and shelter. Those who don't have it are left without the tools to survive.
In the coming days, Congress has a chance to change that. The bill that will be voted on will reduce the deficit by about $1 trillion over the next two decades, and will reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system. It will slow the rate of growth in health care costs and put America back on the path toward fiscal sustainability.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
The garbage currently being peddled in Congress has NOTHING to do with reform.
Republicans do support health care reform, but only in ways that will improve choices and lower costs. Unfortunately, the Dem bills will do the opposite - reduce choice and raise costs.
Typical, just typical - it's always the Republicans who have to reach across the aisle and bend over
yeah sure, and cow crap still stinks. Nothing new in the bill so kill the bill.
Nobody in their right mind would vote on such a catastrophe.
Lahood is a worthless fool. If he had a slight amount of intelligence, he would have bolted from this administration like Judd Gregg did. It didn’t take long to realize that this admin is up to.
Well, he may have been a Republican, but he works for 0bama now, so I’d say he already ‘sold his soul to devil.’
Do we now understand why Ray was the choice of Obama for his sec. of commerce....Republican.....baaaaaahhhhhh Humbuggggg!!!!!
...Now I work for the commies.
ooooopppppssss!!!!!!!! I mean transp.
Possibly true, but irrelevant. Secretary LaHood has clearly demonstrated that he is completely willing to do the Marxist-in-Chief's bidding to include breaking the law to help Obama's UAW buddies and GM (Government Motors) to destroy an automobile company that makes automobiles in American factories.
He was a Republican because it was a convenient cover that allowed him to pursue a left wing agenda in a Conservative district.
Mr. niteowl77
from Chicago, hmmm?
WAs he paid off - or got stuff he needs kept quiet...
Whose right is health care? Do you think it's yours?Congressman Anthony Weiner has said that health care is not a commodity. If it isn't a commodity then do doctors and nurses have rights? Assigning health care the status of a right makes health care workers slaves to that right who must serve it. On what ground could a health care worker refuse to provide their products and services since that would violate the patient's "basic human right to health care."
That is a direct loss of individual rights for health care providers. The collective right of the people to receive health care would supersede the provider's individual right to set fees and hours or to change their occupational status or even decide how to apply their skills and knowledge if taken to its logical extreme. A collective right, by practical definition, is a state right because it is a right that is created and given by the government to those it chooses to give it to. It is not a natural right possessed by each person protected by the Constitution from the government. It is also a collective/state right by virtue of the fact that it would supersede individual rights when the two come into conflict. How else would the government view a right that it created and administers vs. one it has no control over?
Of course it isn't stated in any bill that a patient's right to care supersedes a provider's right to set fees and hours etc, but it doesn't need to. Rights, as always, are adjudicated in the courts. The Health Care Reform bills simply establish the foundation for the courts to rule in favor of the collective right.
Weiner’s view is collectivist, fascist and totalitarian. Collectivist because it has to be described as being a right of the many instead of the one and superior due to that fact. Fascist because ultimately the sole authority for its creation and oversight is from one entity the Federal government. Totalitarian because the Federal government is the enforcer of this collective right as well. State and local jurisdictions will have little say about it.
Congressman Weiner's view is the underlying philosophy of all of the Health Care Reform legislation in the House and Senate. Consider this section in the Senate version of the bill; the setting up of community watch dogs that will monitor citizens for various health parameters. Read pages 382 - 393.
TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS pps 382 - 393
So, even citizens themselves will be subject to Federal regulations on their behavior in order to fulfill the "human right" of universal health care. It isn't the individual's liberty that is being protected by that it is the government's control over its own health care system that is being guarded. How much clearer can it be that these bills abrogate the concept of individual rights? Someone will be checking your lifestyle, according to gov regulations, to be certain you serve the best interests of the "basic human right to health care" ie. "the Public Option."
HCR is not just about rationing care and wealth redistribution. It's about the end of individual rights as the corrosive effects of the new collectivist "basic human right to health care" spreads throughout the legal and political systems like a virus.
I think that the main purpose of Health Care Reform (HCR) is as a direct assault on individual liberties.
Health Care is a Liberty Issue
Conservative Underground - 18 August 2009 - Tim DunkinAnother Stupid Argument: Heath Care is a Right
Obama's Authoritarian, Unconstitutional Health Care Proposal
To Americans Who Believe Healthcare is a Right
OBAMA: HEALTH CARE DESTROYING FREE SPEECH
Mandated health insurance threatens freedom, privacy
Second Bill of Rights aka FDR's economic bill of rights
(An early attempt to embed collective rights into American politics and society.)
You will be a slave of the state if this passes.
More anti-GOP propaganda from FR’s leading RonPaul et al lie-bertarian.
An article or statement that begins “I’m a lifelong Republican” is straight out of Organizing for America. Total BS
The nerve of this dope: working for Obama as his spigot of funds for asphalt and concrete, buses and trains, and then trying to claim authority on the health care issue as a Republican and a conservative. LaHood’s contribution to this bit of hackery was to sign it when the White House communications office shoved it under his nose. The man has no principles left except to hold onto his office as long as he is useful to Obama.
That’s the problem with the Republican Party right there. Why has such an left wing idiot even been a Republican Party congressman at all?
Not from Chicago, but Peoria. But an Illinois RINO....
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