E-mail
PrintOn Nov. 7, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act. Unfortunately, our representative Blaine Luetkemeyer was not one of the supporters.
I guess his background with the insurance industry is more powerful a force than that of his constituents who need access to affordable health care. Many of his physician constituents fear it may hurt the bottom line but realize that it is the right thing to do.
MoreStory
Related Articles
I hope our congressman will do what is right when he gets another opportunity to vote for health care reform.
Comments
The report below was issued by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is specific as to the benefits of the Affordable Health Care for America Act for the Ninth Congressional District.
Representative Luetkemeyer does not acknowledge that his constituents support reform, and it is unfortunate that Congressman Luetkemeyer didn't read this analysis before he voted no - and against his district.
Jane Whitesides
Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_11...
Bipartisan majority? Um, one whole Republican voted for the bill after its passage was assured.
Missourians want reform, this bill ain't it.
John, for months Republicans in both chambers have debated and amended all five bills in committee. On the Senate HELP bill, over 150 Republican amendments were adopted, and NOT ONE Republican voted for the bill. "Bipartisan" only happens when both parties bargain in good faith. Republicans clearly are not interested in passing reform - even if it has many of the provisions they say they want and support.
Jane Whitesides
Jane, I'm referring to the first sentence of the letter, which is clearly incorrect as written.
John:
Even with my blond roots, I knew what you were referring to.
Perhaps, some members of the Progressive Vote Coalition suffer from PLATINUM blonde root disorder.
No doubt, America's network of health delivery systems can use some tweaking.
However, Liberal Lefty Progressives are bent on destroying a viable infrastructure by creating more layers of governmental bureaucracy, interference and control.
I suspect that even the poor, the elderly and the disabled will suffer from Obamacare as our multi-tiered system, of health and human care delivery providers, gets "dumbed-down."
If Obama wants to keep insurance companies "honest," I would think he'd be advocating for more civilian consumer advocacy or citizen class action suits for breach of contracts against these villianous, horrorific acturarial corporations.
(Must be some other kind of agenda in play, I guess.)
Ray, I find it interesting that those in favor of the public option say it will increase competition when federal and state regulations cause less competition, i.e. mandating minimum services for policies offered in a state and not allowing policies offered in one state to be sold in another.
I have more faith in Mr. Luetkemeyer's decision to not support a bad bill then any understanding of the ramblings of Congressman Davis trying to explain to Neil Cavuto how Obama's "health care" reform is an investment which will expand opportunity.
http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/...
What's interesting is if you go to Rep. Luetkemeyer's official home page (http://luetkemeyer.house.gov/index.cfm?s...), and read his press release on why he voted no, he references the "nonpartisan CBO" for a number of cost issues with respect to the bill. He specifically refers to the passed bill as "...Pelosi's $1.3 trillion health care bill..." and claims it " ...will not only add to our nation’s deficit but pass more debt on to future generations..." What he neglects to mention is that the very same CBO report that he references to oppose the bill estimates that the bill will actually reduce the deficit by $100 billion over 10 years. Thus it will not add to the deficit nor does it "...pile(s) insurmountable debt upon our children..." I have no problem with our representatives voting against popular legislation, based on principle and their convictions. I do, however, take exception to them lying about the legislation and doing it so brazenly. I would very much like the Missourian to follow up and ask Rep. Luetkemeyer on what basis does he disagree with the CBO analysis. That is can he explain the $1.31 trillion discrepancy (-$100 billion versus + $1.3 trillion). Additionally, why would he reference specific parts of the CBO analysis when he is at such odds with the overall conclusion of the study? Perhaps if our representatives were compelled by media scrutiny to address public policy issues more honestly we could tackle some of the very important challenges facing our country.
From what I've read, the proposed spending under the plan doesn't kick in until 2012 and ramps up a couple years after that, which makes the 10-year CBO analysis a 7 or 8-year analysis instead. This, along with the presumed (but never gets passed by Congress) Medicare reimbursement "cuts" makes the bill far from reducing the deficit.