After more than a year of debate and negotiations, we still have yet to see real health care reform. The time has come to make the final push and get this much needed legislation passed through Congress.
Not only do insurance rates continue to skyrocket, but the continued debate on health care prevents Congress from focusing on other issues, especially those dealing with the economy. Congress needs to move now to end the debate and finally pass the legislation they have been working on for so long. The only obstacle left now, as always, is politics.
Democrats think, rightly, that they can no longer push through the health care bill in the Senate, which would certainly require 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. They also think, quite wrongly, that they cannot or should not use a Senate rule called reconciliation to amend the bill they already passed. All the Democrats want to do now is amend the bill to save money, make it more effective and fix any differences with the House bill. This is exactly what the reconciliation process was created to do.
I think most people are unaware the Senate already passed health care reform back in December because of the way the media and the Republicans have portrayed the recent political feud. As of now, health care reform bills have in fact passed in both the House and the Senate. But to become law, both versions must be the same. In order to make these fixes, as well as others that would save money, the Senate should use reconciliation.
The Republicans, however, will have none of it. Instead, the Republican leadership and their lobbyist backers are now calling on Democrats to start over on health care reform. But Republicans don’t want to start over. They want to kill the legislation, and they know full well that starting over would do just that. Destroying the progress made on the reform could score Republicans major political points going in to the elections this November.
In the meantime, insurance companies are doing just fine. They continue to raise rates, in the process kicking more and more Americans to the curb while managing to rake in still more money. That is why it is important that Congress moves now to make the much needed changes to the health care industry.
Enacting the legislation that has already passed both the House and the Senate would change many of the broken parts of health insurance, including the following: it would ban insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, it would give tax credits to families and small businesses for health care and it would create a mandate that all Americans get coverage. All of these are important to keeping down costs and increasing the number of people insured.
Back in November 2008, America elected a majority of Democrats to Congress and the White House partly on the promise that they would deliver health care reform. It would be outrageous to deny them that promise. The votes have already been counted, and all the work left to be done is in reconciling the House and Senate bills to finish a reform that is too long in coming.
4 comments
The first and biggest reason... ITS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Second, once the government takes CONTROL of YOUR health care, (control is capitalized because that is what is all about), YOUR health now becomes and economical concern to the government. Example, John Doe is 70 years old, he needs a pacemaker or what ever. Excuse the following stereotypes. The overweight diabetic bureaucrat sitting behind the desk looks at their flow chart and tells Mr. Doe he can't have one. Why not, because her flow chart says that the average lifespan of males is only 72-74 years. Why would the government waste tax payer dollars on a pace maker, or what ever else he may need to prolong his life, when he is only statistically expected to live for 2-4 more years anyhow? Are you starting to see the big picture?Third. Anyone remember the little thing called the county health clinic? Oh yeah, ANYONE CAN GO THERE AND GET TREATMENT... EVEN CANCER AND HIV AIDS TREATMENT. I thought the left said people were dying because they can't get health care and all these millions of kids were not being treated like America was some 3rd world country. WRONG. There is already socialistic systems in place where people can go and get treatment and care. WOW Imagine that.Fourth. Anyone who has half a brain can tell you that the first step turn any free country into a socialistic nation is to take over the big business DONE (AUTO BAILOUT) and heath care (IN THE WORKS)..... Communist Manifest look it up.
THINK PEOPLE THINK DO SOME RESEARCH READ DON'T JUST LISTEN TO THE MEDIA AND REGURGITATE WHAT YOU HEARDo you realize that health care costs would drop dramatically if they would open up health care across state lines? That the feds can do, its called interstate commerce in the constitution and they can control that. Wow, imagine if you could shop across the WHOLE country for your health care provider. Now thats increasing competition. But no, they don't want to increase competition, they want to control it. Whenever the federal government has gotten into the business of competing with private industry, it has nearly destroyed that industry. The whole reason we built our republic on the foundation of limited government is because we don't trust the government. When the government fears its people, it works for their people, when the people fear the government, they become slaves of the government. Bottom line, this is all about control, the more the government can control of your life, the better. If they get control of your health care, they got you by the proverbial balls. Everything revolves around your health.