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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Monday, April 12, 2010

Toomey, Dent Blast Health Care Overhaul

Of course, the recently enacted federal health care overhaul was a hot topic at Friday's candidates' night, hosted by the local tea party.

Republican Senatorial candidate Pat Toomey: (See his video here.)

"It's over $2 trillion in spending of money that we clearly don't have and can't afford. It's going to increase our deficits and debt, and destroy jobs. And it's over a half a trillion dollars in new taxes, taxes on pharmaceuticals, on medical devices, taxes on employers, taxes on workers. Taxes on jobs! Imagine! With the unemployment rate nearly ten per cent, we pass a bill that taxes job creation. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

"One of the things that's as disturbing as all of that to me is the fact that it's really designed to expand dependency, make people more dependent on government, and less able and less willing to have an independent access and control to health care.

"So what we should have done is and we still can do when we repeal this thing is - and the day will come when we can repeal this thing - is we can have the kind of reforms that will make health care more affordable, more accessible. I have long argued that we ought to give individuals the same tax deductions that workers' employers get. Employers get to deduct the cost of health insurance when they buy it for their workers, that's fine. Individuals ought to get the same opportunity. That would immediately make it more affordable for individuals who have to go out and buy health insurance on their own.

"Speaking of insurance, I can buy car insurance from a little green lizard but I can't get health insurance from a guy in New Jersey. This makes no sense to me at all. We ought to force the insurance companies to compete for our business. That is a big source of the problem. Some of the Democrats say they think the only answer is the government. How about some competition? That would make such a big difference.

"I think we need medical malpractice reform as well.

"The goal should be repealing this bill and replacing it with the kind of reforms I've advocated. But let's be clear. President Obama's not gonna' sign a repeal bill, and he's going to be President for at least a couple more years.

Congressman Charlie Dent: (See his video here).

"One of the big fears I had is that, once the Congress enacts a law like this, it's very hard to take it back. It's very hard. So what do we do?

"We're going to have to find ways to defund this. That's one of the most effective things we can try to do in the short term.

"In the intermediate term, we're going to have to try and repeal the major provisions. We have to get rid of the mandates, the employer mandates, the individual mandates, the tax law increases, the Medicare cuts. They didn't cut Medicare to save Medicare. They didn't try to fix it. They cut Medicare to create a new entitlement program. You can't do that, you can't do it.

"So what else are we gonna' do? Defund it, repeal where we can, s best we can, but let's be honest. In the short term, between now and November, the people who just voted for that law aren't going to vote to repeal it. And should we get it through to the President, he won't sign a bill to repeal it. So what we have to do right now in order to stop this damage that they've just done, is we need to elect a new Congress. We're going to need a new President. That's what we're gonna' do. That's probably the best thing we could do.

"Now during this health care debate, I went before the House Rules Committee. That's where they were going to try the 'deem and pass,' you know, Congressman Slaughter, the Slaughterhouse rule and all that sort of thing. I go up into the Rules Committee and offer amendments to the Bill on medical liability reform and to strike the medical device tax. Alcee Hastings, presiding, from Florida, impeached judge, now a member of Congress, he basically didn't like my amendments and basically, two hours before I got the colloquy with him, said, 'We make up the rules here as we go along.'

"We need to replace the people on that Committee. We need to replace them. It is an outrage.

"And that's what we're fighting against right now in Washington. That kind of arrogance, and a Speaker of the House who can stand up and say 'we need to pass this Bill so you can find out what's in it.' Please.

"And now we are finding out what's in it. We're finding out how retirees are at risk of losing their prescription drug benefits because of one change they made, and that's Medicare Part D. Now Henry Waxman is waxing indignant, waxing indignant because people are reporting a loss that's going to occur, and he's going to scold them next week."

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's over. You lost, just like you lost when you fought Social security and Medicare....get over it and move on.

Anonymous said...

Toomey is a nut. When the general election campaign starts in earnest, people will read and hear Toomeys wacky statements he has made over the years.

Maybe independents will love his ideas on making abortions illegal and jailing mothers or doctors.

He will get the standard conservative republican vote but the moderate republicans circling Philly and the independents will run from this extremist.

Peter

Anonymous said...

Peter,


Stayed up late to add your erudite thoughts to the debate?

Scott Armstrong

Anonymous said...

Social Security and Medicare/ Medicaid are working out great. All are bloated and abused and have long since busted all of their budget projections. Proud of these great victories are you? In the year Social Security will put out more than it takes in Team Obama and the Socialist/ Democratic Party have put the country on an unsustainable course of unrestrained federal spending with a haphazardly written and rushed through entitlement bill that dwarfs all of the other programs.

Scott Armstrong

Anonymous said...

this wouldn't ring so hollow had toomey or dent ever tried to tackle health reform prior ro OB's presidency.

Anonymous said...

7:04, maybe they didn't tackle it BECAUSE IT IS NOT IN THE JURISDICTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
Bernie, I honestly love your regular lib morons

Bernie O'Hare said...

Calling a liberal or a conservative a moron is just inflammatory and does not do anything to help a discussion. And there are certainly aspects of health care reform that are in the national jurisdicition, if not all of it. I'll wait for the courts to decide that.

Anonymous said...

It's amusing to read from the Stockholm Syndrome sufferers who think health care has been solved by the same government that brought us the Veterans Administration and a current debt we have no reasonable hope of ever being able to pay.

Some fools will believe anything.

Donna said...

Peter, I'd be really interested in reading, WITH ATTRIBUTION, some of the "wacky" statements of which you accuse Pat Toomey....You'll forgive my evil right wing suspicious nature if I don't just take your word for them....

Joe Hilliard said...

Anon 2:53,

The Department of Veterans Affairs, as a cabinet department, we created by Republican George H.W. Bush.

Now, veterans DESERVE all the support they can get, but I would rather see a private voucher system so these veterans could choose their own insurance and doctors.

Also, you state, "...and a current debt we have no reasonable hope of ever being able to pay."

At the beginning of the Bush Administration (with R control of Congress), the federal debt level stood at more than $7 trillion. Before President Obama took over, it was almost $13 trillion - with all those R's in control. It is estimated to be approximately $18 trillion by 2014.

BOTH PARTIES - politicians - are the problem!!!!! And those who still advocate the sports team mentality in politics will not learn the real problem. If we do not realize the real problem, it will not be fixed.

Anonymous said...

Germany started a program of making sure everyone had health coverage 140 years ago under the leadership of Otto Van Bismark (not exactly a liberal).

A Republican President and a Republican Congress passes a $1.3T tax cut in an untraditional manner as well. I guess Charlie thinks it is ok to pass tax cuts by manipulating the rules, but not health care for his constituents.

Any why is is ok to spend more then $1T on bogus wars in Afganistan and Iraq, but wrong to take care of our own?

The deficit was 29% of GDP in 1980 and continued to increase from the beginnig of The Reagan Administration through Bush 2. The only exception was the Clinton years when we ran a budget surplus and the debt-to-GDP shrank for a few years. The conservative economic agenda didn't work, so why should we believe them on health care?

Is it morally and ethically correct to allow 45,000 people to die each year because they cannot afford health insurance? WWJD?

Lighthouse said...

I voted for Dent and Toomey in the past (and probably will again), but as I posted on the earlier post from yesterday:

Kind of funny hearing all this talk of "socialized medicine" coming from the GOP.

From a May 2005 article CNN and Fortune Magazine: "Still, there's a potential common agenda lurking beneath today's health-cost angst. Think of it as a two-step: First, we'd move a chunk of private-sector health costs to government, something business and labor could embrace as a competitiveness booster. Then we'd find ways to guarantee coverage for all while reengineering health-care delivery to lower costs in the long term (without the price controls that stall innovation abroad). Easier said than done, you may say. But seen in this context, the prescription-drug bill last year was the first step in the Republican-led socialization of health spending. Companies have been clobbered funding retiree health plans. The GOP felt their pain, and presto, $750 billion over ten years moved from private to public budgets."

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.