Posted by tx on September 29, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page | 
The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on the Public Option line item of the Health Care Bill on Tuesday, September 29th. Democrats have the votes. But, there is a way to stop the process – using Rule 4 of the Rules of Procedure for the Senate Finance Committee.
Rule 4 of the Rules of Procedure for the Senate Finance Committee reads: “Rule 4. Quorums. – (a) Except as provided in subsection (b) one-third of the membership of the committee, including not less than one member of the majority party and one member of the minority party, shall constitute a quorum for the conduct of business.”
Conservative citizens all across the United States must demand that Republican Senators in the Senate Finance Committee stop negotiating and Walk Out for America. We will support this effort and will support the Republican members of the Committee. Call and email the following Republican Senators and tell them to Take a Stand and Walk Out. We the People need to tell our elected this point is NON-NEGOTIABLE AND MUST BE STOPPED.
Contact these Republican Senators today, quote Rule 4, and tell them their Constituents demand this Bill be STOPPED.
Member Name DC Phone DC FAX Email
John Cornyn (R-TX) 202-224-2934 202-228-2856 http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
http://grassley.senate.gov/contact.cfm
Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) 202-224-5251 202-224-6331 http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact
Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) 202-224-5344 202-224-1946 http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
http://kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm
Jim Bunning (R-KY) 202-224-4343 202-228-1373 http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
http://crapo.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
Pat Roberts (R-KS) 202-224-4774 202-224-3514 http://roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=ContactInformation.EmailPat
http://roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=ContactInformation.EmailPat
http://ensign.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
http://enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=ContactInformation.EmailSenatorEnzi
Posted by tx on September 14, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page, Texas candidates |
This does answer some questions.
Posted by tx on September 9, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page, Texas candidates |
The following op-ed by Sen. Cornyn and Benjamin E. Sasse was posted on Forbes, and can also be accessed here.
This summer, the American people have focused intently on how Washington proposes to reform health care. One thing is clear: They aren’t impressed with Congress’ efforts to date.
A new CBS poll shows that average citizens, by a margin of 31 to 18, think they’ll be worse off under the proposed overhaul. Their worries at town halls–about the value the government will place on human life and about the odd claim that spending $1 trillion more will save money–are commonsensical, not un-American questions. The president has an opportunity Wednesday not to double-down on the Congress’ failing strategy, but to demonstrate the kind of change to Washington’s business-as-usual on which he campaigned.
While the media has focused on intermittent shouting, our main take-away from the town halls has been different: An unprecedented number of voters are actually reading the draft legislation. At the overflow events we’ve seen, broad cross-sections of America–patients to providers, students to seniors, small-business owners to corporate executives–are reciting page and line numbers from the 1,000-page bills. In most cases, questioners have shown greater command of the technical substance of these proposals than many who have voted for the legislation.
Working Americans, who have seen billions of their hard-earned dollars squandered on the financial and auto bailouts, no longer believe Washington deserves the benefit of the doubt. After the frantic rush to pass an economic stimulus package less than 24 hours after it was written, only a small fraction of the dollars have been spent in the subsequent seven months. While Washington guaranteed the stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8%, one in 10 Americans are now struggling to find jobs. Washington promised to cut the deficit in half, yet budget officials project we will actually add more than $9 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Asking if Washington’s rhetoric matches the reality of what the bills say is not only the right but the responsibility of an engaged, educated citizenry. Beltway insiders do not seem to realize that average Americans no longer take politicians’ vague promises at face value.
On Main Streets across Texas, the quote of the year belongs to Rep. John Conyers: “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” Feeling swindled from the $787 billion stimulus bill, wary constituents are picking up the slack and reading the health care legislation themselves. And they want to make sure their elected representatives know what the fine print actually says.
We agree with the president that inaction on health reform is not an option. But worried Americans are wisely asking if their leaders are sure that their bills will not simply make today’s problems worse. They are wary of giving control over personal matters of life-and-death to distant bureaucracies and to political deal-cutters who often do not even know the details of their own deals.
The president can bank a huge reservoir of public trust Wednesday by engaging the public with direct answers to their commonsense questions, such as:
–We spend nearly double per capita what some other industrialized nations spend on health care; how will another trillion dollars really reduce health care spending?
–How can we cut nearly $500 billion from the Medicare program for seniors when it is now underfunded by three times the national debt and currently projected to be bankrupt by 2017?
–How will a new government-run insurance program “keep insurers honest” when our two current public plans, Medicare and Medicaid, are riddled with unmatched fraud, waste and abuse?
–How do we reconcile the claim that lobbyist influence in Washington is decreasing with the fact that those most closely consulted on these gargantuan bills are special interest groups like the pharmaceutical industry?
–”Minimum benefit packages” that are mandated as a part of every insurance plan sound great, but since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, don’t mandated benefits actually reduce choices and drive up costs for all patients?
–Will employer “pay-or-play” mandates accelerate the job losses we are seeing across the country?
By honestly engaging the centrist questions of the voters Wednesday night–instead of parroting the central planners’ one-size-fits-all talking points–the president could provide the specificity the people are demanding and lead a supermajority of the middle. For example, he has repeatedly said that reform should spread to the entire system the superior quality and cost-effectiveness of integrated delivery systems–like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or Scott & White in Texas. We agree. But now he needs to tell us how his solution will help rather than hurt these non-governmental innovators. If he can do this, he may find the kind of broad public support that Congress’ efforts have lacked.
As important: By paying serious heed to the public’s fear–that a Washington that doesn’t read its bills is as likely to break what works as fix what’s broken–Obama can rebuild the trust of the American people in their leaders.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, serves on the Finance, Judiciary, Agriculture and Budget committees and is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Benjamin E. Sasse, former U.S. assistant secretary of health, teaches at the University of Texas and advises health investors.
Posted by tx on September 4, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page, Texas patriots |
(From Townhall comes an essay by one of my favorite Texans, Chuck Norris. The entire essay is reprinted here.)
Ever heard the saying “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”? That’s true for any of the 1,000-plus-page versions of “Government-run healthcare“.
I’ve informed you in previous columns of two dirty secrets in Government-run healthcare . Dirty secret No. 3 is the sin of omission. It’s what the health care bill doesn’t say that will bite you in the end.
In 1,000-plus pages, there’s surprisingly sparse coverage or complete avoidance of a host of necessary issues. I would cite pages in the bill, as I’ve done in my other articles, but there aren’t any covering them. These are questions that need specific answers by the administration, as well as by each of our representatives:
–What would the child development methods and values used in training parents during home visitations be? –To whom or what would the national committee that would oversee the entire health care system be accountable?
–What would the extents of power and limitations or boundaries of the national committee be?
–Would the national and regional health care committees eventually run with the power of the Federal Reserve System, as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the health care adviser to the Obama administration, proposes in his book “Healthcare, Guaranteed”?
–Would Medicare be “phased out,” as Emanuel proposes in his book?
–Would Medicaid be “phased out,” as Emanuel proposes in his book?
–Would employee-provided health insurance eventually cease, as Emanuel proposes in his book?
–Specifically, how would the nation provide and pay for the additional medical and administrative personnel needed to cover roughly 50 million more people?
–Specifically, how would the nation provide and pay for the additional medical facilities and equipment needed to equip the new medical and administrative personnel?
–What are the specific cost projections for such extensive and extra medical personnel, practices, offices and equipment?
–What about the maldistribution of physicians?
–What about tort reform?
–What about class action suits?
–Would illegal immigrants be covered under this program?
–What about the specifics of abortion services? Would taxpayer funds finance them?
–What types and limitations of end-of-life counsel would be offered?
–Any guarantees that the middle class wouldn’t be paying for Obamacare eventually?
–Have you investigated or read any other options for or alternatives to health care reform besides the most recent version of Obamacare? If not, why? If so, what are the pros and cons of each?
–Most importantly, will you write or sign amendments that guarantee the restrictions or explanations of the above points into law before passing any form of Government-run healthcare?
Now read that list more slowly one more time, and ask yourself this: Is it a complete coincidence that all those specifics aren’t mentioned already in Government-run healthcare legislation? Do you want your representative to sign off on a bill that doesn’t specify them? (Would you sign a contract to buy a car that didn’t discuss financing or even the specifics of the car you were buying?)
Isn’t this just the same ol’ doubletalk and dirty politics we’ve seen in Washington? Whatever happened to the President’s campaign promises about the “most sweeping ethics reform” and “unprecedented transparency”? Why doesn’t Washington start telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God?
Candidate Obama promised that the middle class would not pay for the program, yet the proposed Government-run healthcare legislation would shift progressive onus (beginning on Page 846) for aspects of ongoing health care onto state and local communities — which, in turn, would pay for those services how? It doesn’t say. And if a state were not to meet the criteria to be eligible for federal reimbursement, do we assume the federal government would write it all off, or would we the taxpayers foot that bill, too? It doesn’t say. Generalities such as “the State share of the cost” (Page 847) should cause your pocketbook to tremble.
So here’s what the specific implementation plan of Government-run healthcare comes down to: “Trust government.” A friend of mine who is a California Highway Patrol officer says, “In God we trust; all others we search.” And that includes government.
Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell care, write or call your representative today and protest his rushing to vote Government-run healthcare into law. Remind him that what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed an ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that would rein in out-of-control insurance companies and wouldn’t raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens’ freedoms in any way.
Watch your back, America! As the adage goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Posted by tx on August 31, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page |
DOORS OPEN at 5:00 PM.
The MoveOn.org left-wingers will be there EARLY.
Begins : Monday, August 31 at 5:00 pm (doors open)
Ends : Monday, August 31 at 9:00 pm
Location: Charles W. Eisemann Center
Address:
2351 Performance Drive, Richardson, TX 75082 Map it
August 31st at 7 p.m. (program begins) at the Eisemann Center in Richardson
http://www.samjohnson.house.gov/news/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=142392
On Monday, August 31st at 7:00 p.m., U.S. Congressmen Joe Barton (6th Dist.-Texas), Jeb Hensarling (5th Dist.-Texas), Sam Johnson (3rd Dist.-Texas), and Pete Sessions (32nd Dist.-Texas) will host a congressional field hearing on healthcare solutions at the Eisemann Center in Richardson. The free event will be open to the public and the media. There will be parking but people are encouraged to take DART.
Congressional hearing panelists include:
1. Eddie McBride, President, Lubbock Chamber of Commerce; the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce works to make health care coverage more affordable for employers and their employees through both advocacy and the award-winning Lubbock Chamber Employer Health Plan;
2. Christopher Crow, MD, Village Health Partners, Plano, TX; Village Health Partners is a nationally recognized family medical practice located in Plano, serving patients throughout Dallas and Collin County;
3. Joel Allison, President and CEO, Baylor Health Care System; For the 17th consecutive year, U.S News has listed Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas (Baylor Dallas) in its America’s Best Hospitals issue. Baylor Dallas is the only North Texas hospital to achieve this distinction; and
4. Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, First Vice President of the National Association of Counties, to discuss local prescription drug card plans.
John Goodman, President and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, of Dallas, will serve as the moderator of the event. Barbara Herteg of Richardson will perform the National Anthem. Richardson’s Boy Scout Troop 1001 with Trinity Baptist Church will present the colors.
The Eisemann Center’s location, just south of the intersection of Central Expressway (US 75) and the President George Bush Turnpike (Hwy. 190), is easily accessible by car. Just a few hundred feet from the Eisemann Center’s front doors is the DART Rail’s Galatyn Park Station on the Red Line.
For the safety of all attendees, the Center prohibits large signs, posters or banners and any placard affixed to sticks or other sharp objects from being brought into the Center. In the event the Hill Performance Hall reaches capacity, attendees will be directed and seated in over-flow rooms where they may watch the event via a live video feed.
Posted by tx on August 24, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page, New American Revolution, Tea Party Protests |
From Andrew Breitbart at Big Hollywood:
John Mackey – the founder, CEO and marketing genius behind Whole Foods – finds himself in an organic, unsustainable mess with his carefully cultivated affluent, liberal customer base after penning an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.”
For starters, Mr. Mackey opens with a line from known-liberal-allergen Margaret Thatcher that features the dreaded “S” word: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Then he goes on to provide eight sensible free-market solutions gleaned from his company’s well-regarded employee health care program.
Mr. Mackey, a free-market libertarian, is now at the mercy of an unforgiving grass-roots mob intent on destroying his company. More than 25,000 people have signed on to a Whole Foods boycott on Facebook.
“Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives,” the online petition reads. “Let them know your money will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.”….
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So where is the hypocrisy you may wonder. I attended a counter protest at Whole Foods on Sunday, August 16, 2009 at the Whole Foods in Austin, Texas. Our 9/12 groups were notified of a protest to “Boycott Whole Foods” for that morning. The photo to the left shows only some of our members.
Those of us who supported not only John Mackey’s right to publicly state his opinion but the content of his statement decided to counter protest. Our counter protest outnumbered that of the “boycotters“. For three very hot hours, both groups stood on the street corner in front of Whole Foods. Occasionally, we even spoke to one another, arguing about the real issue — government run healthcare. Finally, when the 100+ degree heat was too much for all of us, the protesters put away their signs. Most of us, including the “boycotters“, went inside Whole Foods for lunch. No doubt the “boycotters” purchased a very healthy, tasty, organic portion of hypocrisy.
Posted by tx on August 21, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page |
Michael Ramirez is my favorite political cartoonist. I will let him do the talking for me today.
Posted by tx on August 19, 2009 under Healthcare, Home Page |
Bishop R. Walker Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa
The current national debate about health care reform should concern all of us. There is much at stake in this political struggle, and also much confusion and inaccurate information being thrown around. My brother bishops have described some clear “goal-posts” to mark out what is acceptable reform, and what must be rejected. First and most important, the Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research. We refuse to be made complicit in these evils, which frankly contradict what “health care” should mean. We refuse to allow our own parish, school, and diocesan health insurance plans to be forced to include these evils. As a corollary of this, we insist equally on adequate protection of individual rights of conscience for patients and health care providers not to be made complicit in these evils. A so-called reform that imposes these evils on us would be far worse than keeping the health care system we now have.
Second, the Catholic Church does not teach that “health care” as such, without distinction, is a natural right. The “natural right” of health care is the divine bounty of food, water, and air without which all of us quickly die. This bounty comes from God directly. None of us own it, and none of us can morally withhold it from others. The remainder of health care is a political, not a natural, right, because it comes from our human efforts, creativity, and compassion. As a political right, health care should be apportioned according to need, not ability to pay or to benefit from the care. We reject the rationing of care. Those who are sickest should get the most care, regardless of age, status, or wealth. But how to do this is not self-evident. The decisions that we must collectively make about how to administer health care therefore fall under “prudential judgment.”
Third, in that category of prudential judgment, the Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good – it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible – health care should not be subject to federal monopolization. Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined “best procedures,” which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses. Therefore any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect. Private, religious hospitals and nursing homes, in particular, should be protected, because these are the ones most vigorously offering actual health care to the poorest of the poor.
The best way in practice to approach this balance of public and private roles is to spread the risks and costs of health care over the largest number of people. This is the principle underlying Medicaid and Medicare taxes, for example. But this principle assumes that the pool of taxable workers is sufficiently large, compared to those who draw the benefits, to be reasonably inexpensive and just. This assumption is at root a pro-life assumption! Indeed, we were a culture of life when such programs began. Only if we again foster a culture of life can we perpetuate the economic justice of taxing workers to pay health care for the poor. Without a growing population of youth, our growing population of retirees is outstripping our distribution systems. In a culture of death such as we have now, taxation to redistribute costs of medical care becomes both unjust and unsustainable.
Fourth, preventative care is a moral obligation of the individual to God and to his or her family and loved ones, not a right to be demanded from society. The gift of life comes only from God; to spurn that gift by seriously mistreating our own health is morally wrong. The most effective preventative care for most people is essentially free – good diet, moderate exercise, and sufficient sleep. But pre-natal and neo-natal care are examples of preventative care requiring medical expertise, and therefore cost; and this sort of care should be made available to all as far as possible.
Within these limits, the Church has been advocating for decades that health care be made more accessible to all, especially to the poor. Will the current health care reform proposals achieve these goals?
The current House reform bill, HR 3200, does not meet the first or the fourth standard. As Cardinal Justin Rigali has written for the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-life Activities, this bill circumvents the Hyde amendment (which prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions) by drawing funding from new sources not covered by the Hyde amendment, and by creatively manipulating how federal funds covered by the Hyde amendment are accounted. It also provides a “public insurance option” without adequate limits, so that smaller employers especially will have a financial incentive to push all their employees into this public insurance. This will effectively prevent those employees from choosing any private insurance plans. This will saddle the working classes with additional taxes for inefficient and immoral entitlements. The Senate bill, HELP, is better than the House bill, as I understand it. It subsidizes care for the poor, rather than tending to monopolize care. But, it designates the limit of four times federal poverty level for the public insurance option, which still includes more than half of all workers. This would impinge on the vitality of the private sector. It also does not meet the first standard of explicitly excluding mandatory abortion coverage.
I encourage all of you to make you voice heard to our representatives in Congress. Tell them what they need to hear from us: no health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform. Insist that they not permit themselves to be railroaded into the current too-costly and pro-abortion health care proposals. Insist on their support for proposals that respect the life and dignity of every human person, especially the unborn. And above all, pray for them, and for our country. (Please see the website for the Iowa Catholic Conference at www.iowacatholicconference.org and www.usccb.org/healthcare for more information)
