I listened to a Congressman from Alabama give the Republican’s weekly statement (after the President’s weekly statement) on NBC this morning and was told that despite what Pelosi and Reid want, despite the threat of using reconciliation to push the Health Care bill through, the American People don’t want the Health Care bill as it has been debated and argued over the past year. He said the American People want Congress and The President to “start over on a new page.”
Here in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, about as American a location as you can find, I sit watching this knowing that I WANT a Health Care bill to be passed NOW. I know that if the government starts on a NEW PAGE it will be in the face of a rate-raising, highly profitable private insurance system and a 10-to-1 ratio of lobbyists who are NOT starting on a new page, who will work day and night to weaken any progress.
Do I want to allow this to happen? Do I not want to see the potential for Health Care plans that will be made available for 30 million more people, that will allow insurance companies to cancel existing plans or not let folks with pre-existing conditions (like little ol’ diabetic me) sign up if they change jobs? Am I not an American Person?
I asked my wife, who also wants to see Health Care passed NOW if she was an American Person. Oddly enough, she said she was. Last night we sat in a lounge with friends from the Philadelphia area (they are pretty American, too, and all 4 were People) and they had the same feelings about Health Care politics that we had.
Yet the Republicans keep pointing out that the American People want things to start again on a NEW Page.
Well, as an official American Person, in contact with lots of other American People, may I say that WE DON’T WANT TO START ON A NEW PAGE. We want the Health Care plan to go through NOW. We have too many other things to get to and we don’t want to throw away all the work that has been done so far. And we don’t want the Insurance Industry and the Lobbyists to be given still another advantage in the debate.
No Republicans have asked me for my opinion, yet, as an American Person, they are willing to form their opinion as reported words from my mouth. Maybe they should get on board with the rest of us and put America ahead of Party Politics.
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