For all those that have missed Mike Roger’s opening statement on Health Care reform, which was aired on YouTube Videos, it is definitely worth looking at.
The following is from Congressman Roger’s speech in Washington D.C.:
Abraham Lincoln said that you can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.
So what we have decided to do today is abandon the very principles of America and say today, you know what, it’s so hard and so difficult, we are going to punish the 85% of Americans who have earned health care benefits as part of their employment and punish the employers who give it to them to try and cover the 15% that don’t have it.
That doesn’t hardly come to a conclusion that any of us would come to.
Why would we punish the part that is working to cover the part that’s not. It’s like trying to take a queen-size sheet and put it over a king size bed. I guarantee you; the corners are going to come up. That’s exactly what we have done here today.
And the notion that it is either this or nothing presents very false choices.
Let me tell you about the trade-offs by going to the government run system. And clearly it is, by Section 141 under the Health Choices Commissioner Act.
They can actually go in and dis-enroll individuals- unprecedented power by the Federal government. They can rip you off your own individual plan. Oh, matter of fact, if you are an employer, $250,000 of payroll, that’s gross payroll, not much, guess what…they can dis-enroll your whole company off a certain plan. Tell me that you don’t work for the Federal government. Unbelievable.
And here’s the other trade-off. According to the National Intelligence Cancer Center for the United Kingdom and the Canadian Cancer Registry, here is the trade-off that they pick by having government run healthcare.
If you get prostate cancer, you have less chance of survivability than the United States. And that is the same for skin cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, and the list goes on and on and on. So what you have said to America is, we give up. It’s just too hard. The government has to do it.
That’s insulting. So what you are going to do is you are going to look your mothers and your daughters in the eye and say, I’m sorry, we couldn’t can i buy ventolin inhaler over the counter figure it out and allow innovation to do it, we are not going to let the private sector fix this problem for us, that’s too hard. But I am going to tell you if you get breast cancer, I’m sorry honey, you have less of a chance of survival than before this bill was passed.
I will not punish any woman in America to this kind of system, knowing how great America is.
The very innovation of who we are what got us here and it wasn’t the Federal government, and it wasn’t Washington DC. It was individuals who stood up for themselves and said, we can do better. And because of that, we have the greatest middle class on the face of the earth. And this is one more tic in their ability to succeed in America.
You have already told them that Gee, your energy prices were too high middle class, and we are going to raise those with cap and trade. Oh by the way, we’re going to tell you what kind of car you are going to drive, we are going to tell you what kind of light bulb you can put in, we are going to tell you what kind of window you have to replace in your house, and oh by the way, now I am going to pick your doctor, and your plan for your future.
We must and can do better. This is a travesty, Mr. Chairman.
This speech was such an eye-opener on several levels.
Ironic that we are fighting all over the world to bring democracy to other nations when looking at this speech implies that we as a nation are moving away from democracy ourselves.
Secondly, it highlights the fact that for the sake of economics, we would tear down a medical system that is one of the most technologically advanced in the world. When dignitaries fall to a major illness, it is the United States that they come to for treatment.
Why not give subsidy vouchers to those that can not afford health insurance and leave the ones that already have insurance to their own decisions.
If the government feels compelled to make changes, let it be that insurance companies cannot drop those who have developed illnesses or pre-existing conditions. This, then would be an improvement that everyone could approve of.
