a:1:{s:16:"field_forum_body";a:1:{i:0;a:2:{s:5:"value";s:2576:"As the show down approaches on Universal Health Care in Washington it appears President Obama will attempt one last desperate effort to push through a modified version of the health care bill the majority of the people really don’t like or want. However, to save face the President and the Democrats MUST push through something to say they have been successful, regardless of what the people of the country want.

The people have made it very clear they want Congress and the President to go back to the drawing board and hammer out a truly bipartisan bill. It’s time have a real dialog about what the people of this country want and need. Forcing through a health care bill to say you have accomplished your “MISSION” without actually addressing the underling defects of the current system is unconscionable. I am sure the reasoning of the democrats reflects what Iowa Senator Tom Harken said, “it has room for expansion and additions in the future. If we don’t start the starter home, we’ll never get there. So this is not the end of health care reform, this is the beginning of health care reform”.  The democrats feel they can go back later and change what they couldn’t get passed in the original bill. Their approach is to take away your rights and freedoms incrementally so that you will never notice it has happened until it is too late. 

As a conservative I am disheartened our leaders in Washington are driven by political agendas and interests that do not reflect what the people actually want. How the President and Congress can say or think that implementation of the Health Care bill will be revenue neutral, let alone show a cost savings over time, is beyond belief. When has anything the Federal government has done been cost effective – (The Postal Service, Veteran’s Affairs, Medicaid, Medicare, Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Caulkers, Stimulus 1, Stimulus 2). If the Federal Government hasn’t been able to eliminate fraud from Medicare and Medicaid why would we think they could remove it from an even larger health care system? They can’t and they won’t! 
Call, e-mail, and/or write to your Congressman or Senator and demand they go back and start over and fix what’s broken with the health care system and leave the rest alone and let private industry do what it does best.

(Submitted for publication to Owosso Independent, Lainsgburg Independent, Perry Independent, St. Johns/DeWitt Independent, DeWitt/Bath Review & to the Clinton County News on March 2, 2010)

(Published in the DeWitt/Bath Review on 3/7/2010.)
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