Posted by
Patrick Henry on Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:24:47 AM
Everyone knows that America needs healthcare reform, Mr. President, and you are to be applauded
for making it a high priority on your agenda. Your speech last night was so important that I listened
carefully to every word -- even read the transcript afterward. The whole debate is so opaque, so
murky, that I was hoping for real clarification of your position and the important aspects of the issue.
But after hearing you, I still have some lingering questions. So do other Americans, and if you could
just answer them I believe we could shortly have a bill that most would sign onto.
You said at one point that under your plan illegal aliens would not be covered. I'm not sure which
plan "your plan" is, since the only thing we have concretely on the table is HB 3200, which does NOT
specifically exclude the undocumented from coverage. Further, you continue to use the number of
fifty million to describe the uninsured, and I'm not sure how you could get to that number without
including the undocumented. So please tell me, Mr. President, if the undocumented are really not
going to be elligible, why is it that YOUR party persistently blacks amendments to HB 3200 that
would say so in plain language and provide enforcement measures to guarantee it? It just appears
to some of us that while YOUR words are conveying one message, THEIR actions, which will eventually
constitute the law, are sending a contrary one. Could you please clarify?
You also said that no taxpayer funds would be used to fund abortion. But HB 3200 says no such thing.
In fact, YOUR party has blocked at least nine amendments that would have guaranteed your promise.
Why is that, Mr. President? Are we just supposed to blindly believe your assertion, when all of your
administration's policies have blatantly favored abortion? How can we believe you if the law under
consideration doesn't say it?
You say that reform. including the "public option" will be paid for by saving $500 billion in
Medicare waste and fraud. Who decides what's wasteful? Is a second test to confirm further development
of a disease wasteful? Is chemotherapy for a senior believed to be terminally ill wasteful? Is natural
medicine or physical therapy wasteful? Who decides? What are the MEDICAL qualificatiions of
those who do? And beyond that, you ask us to believe that YOU can cut payments, improve care
and not create more deficit spending when the Congressional Budget Office says the exact opposite?
We're pretty gullible, Mr. President, but what proof can you cite that would cause Americans to
believe that you -- more than those who have preceded you -- can do the impossible?
You said that you want bipartsianship in the healthcare bill. Whys is it, then, that YOUR parrty
has completely refused to consult with the opposition to get such a bill, that when Republicans wrote
you a letter asking for a meeting YOU did not grant it, that Republican alternatives to your vision,
which are also embodied in bills, are never debated or brought up for a vote? Why do YOU, in a
nationally televised speech, categorize differing interpretations based on your mixed messages as
"lies," and why does your party persist in calling those who do not agree with them "Nazis"
"teabaggers" or "astroturfers?" You seem to be giving lip service to bipartisanship, while YOUR
actions, and those of YOUR party remain bitterly partisan. Can you explain that to us, Mr.
President?
You see, once your teleprompter has gone blank, America is still left with a host of unansered
questions, and a myriad of contradictions between YOUR words and YOUR party's actions -- between
the vision you tout and what the only bills Americans have read actually say. What we want, Mr.
President, is some consistency, some common sense, some straight answers, some inclusiveness.
Otherwise we must conclude that the only ideas you're really interested in hearing are those that
agree with your own, and that's just not the way Democracy works. Or are we going to reform
that too?