Sunday's public roll-call vote on the health care bill has every House member vote on these key questions:
Q: end the right of insurance companies to deny someone insurance because of pre-existing conditions?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES
Q: end the practice of insurance companies who cut people's insurance off when they're still sick and starting to cost the insurance company too much money?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES
Q: allow young adults up to age 26 to remain on his or her parent's health insurance?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES
Q: reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the next ten years and $1.2 trillion over twenty years?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES
The Republicans are playing politics only, siding WITH the insurance industry and against the AARP, the AMA, tens of thousands of Catholic nuns, and a bill that will reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years ...
As Congressman Jim Clyburn, the Democratic House Whip from South Carolina has noted, it took eight years and several pieces of major legislation to get civil rights fully implemented in the 1960s and early 1970s. This health care legislation is not perfect but it is an important, significant, and indispensable improvement. There will be other opportunities to fix the things that do not work as promised and to implement further changes that both Democrats, Republicans, and Independents would like to see.
It's hard to find any reasonable person who thinks NOTHING should be done. The Republicans had 12 years running Congress, six of which overlapped with one-party rule while Bush was president. The only thing they did was create the largest entitlement program since the 1960s by creating the Medicare prescription drug plan -- a "socialist" government run health care program by the definition of today's congressional Republicans. So let's cut the conspiracy crap about process and the b.s. about big government.
In ten years, most of these changes to health care today will be seen as effective as Medicare and Social Security at improving people's lives.
