From U.S. Rep. Tom Latham:
Today (Wednesday), I continued my longstanding effort to replace the misguided and unpopular new health care law with real solutions that will get results for the American people. The bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives that voted today for a full repeal of the president’s new law sent a clear message. Hardworking taxpayers deserve common-sense reforms that will increase health care access and lower costs for hardworking Americans without giving away control of their personal health care decisions to Washington bureaucrats.
We’ve learned a good deal about how harmful this law will continue to be to the stability of our health care system, patient choice and the economy. It was built on a foundation of tax hikes, broken promises, budgeting gimmicks and accounting tricks that explodes health care costs and plunges our country even further into debt.
While the Supreme Court had the duty to determine the constitutionality of this law, it did not have the authority to determine if it is good or bad policy for hardworking Iowans. Thankfully, it is still the American people who ultimately have the power and the right to make that final judgment. And I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans want us to repeal this harmful and misguided law and start over.
I’ve already authored my own health care reform legislation, HR 364, which would control health care costs, expand access to quality health care to more Americans and wouldn’t add a penny to the federal debt. It’s my hope that the solutions contained in my proposal will play a prominent role as Congress continues its work to make health care more accessible and affordable for the American people.
But I can’t do my job without your input. In a representative democracy, government leaders need to hear the voices of those they represent. So I’m inviting you to contact my office to let me know where you stand on health care. The Supreme Court has spoken. Now it’s your turn.
You can reach my office via telephone, mail or online. I’ve set up a brief health care survey on my website that will allow you to make your voice heard on some key issues regarding the new health care law.
As today’s vote illustrates, the U.S. House of Representatives is taking action to get results for the American people. Our system of government depends on citizens taking a stand and making their voices heard. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me so we can work together for real health care reforms.
You’re in la la land if you think there is any way an insurance co. is going to allow someone with a preexisting condition to pay the same rate as one with no medical history problems! My question, which no one on the Liberal side wants to consider is; Who and how are the 12 to 20 million illegals going to be handled? If we cover everyone but that group aren’t we in the same boat?
HOLY YIKES…more freeloaders stepping up to the feed trough everyday and they will continue on and on and on and on… that’s how the LIBERAL MACHINE wants it ! That’s how they get votes – not by trying to decrease government, but ever increase and make more folks dependent upon the government handouts – makes me sick. Today there are more folks sucking off the government than paying into the governemnt and it is only getting worse, and especially now with “OBIMBOCARE” TRILLION dollar healthcare program 🙁
When is congress going to do something about the frivilious lawsuits and capping the amounts paid out for malpractrice lawsuits? This is one of the biggest reasons healthcare is so expensive, and don’t forget the obese state the U.S. is in – just give them more handouts and make them fatter and more unhealthy ! Will morbidly obese welfare maggots explode ?
Nice ‘Todd’
Thank you…. but I’m not Todd
Hit the nail dead on with a gigantic hammer didn’t I ?
Corporate welfare maggots are the biggest free loaders in America. Any business taking taxpayer dollars should have to be employee owned. We give rich business owners our money so that we can have the privledge to work our asses off to make them richer. How stupid is that.
If you were dealing with a car salesman and every time you went back he raised the price of the car you wanted to buy, A LOT, you would soon figure out he was trying to pull a fast one. The same is happening with healthcare, the price keeps going up A LOT but you want to believe in this so bad that you ignore reality.
I want insurance company reform. I want them to accept all applicants without excluding people with preexisting conditions. I want everyone in a state to be in one group so the premiums are all averaged out at the lowest rate. I want them to do away with waiting periods when a person starts employment. I want them to make employees pay a pro-rata amount of their premiums based on the number of hours worked per week and the rate of pay, with the employer paying a maximim of 80% for an employee who works 40 hours at a low rate of pay, based on the employer’s profit margin. I want insurance to be available to part-time workers. In other words, McDonald’s & Wal*Mart would have to provide insurance for all its employees, but the employee would have to contribute as well. I do not believe that an employer should ever have become responsible for providing insurance for it’s employees. It was a huge mistake. It all started back when the government froze wages and businesses got around that by providing other perks such as health or life insurance policies in place of raises.
Who thinks the Part D legislation should have been enacted without figuring out how they were going to pay for it? Who watches Fox News? The real info is online. Skip the soundbites, dig into the issues. Stop with the Bush stuff, how about dealing with the here and now? Stop whining about past administrations and quit making it an our team versus their team drama. Try being an independent with no team, just critical thinking and common sense. You can only do that if you have info from both sides of an issue. Why don’t you question everything, even your own side? You are certainly a trusting soul.
I am a republican but I don’t watch fox news because it’s one sided and I definetely don’t watch MSNBC because they have no frikken clue. You said the real info is online. Every site I’ve been to has been written by a lawyer it seems. Where can we find it where we can understand it? I feel like I understand the meaning behind it, how it will effect my life positive and negitive and I don’t like it at all but I want more info. I have an open mind, the only thing that I don’t have an open mind about is ignorance, you are a demacrat so therefore you are right, period: might as well hand the keys of the country over to the next owners.
You say you have an open mind then you trash all democrats. So I guess you are a liar because while I’am not a democrat or republican I know very intelligent and open minded people in both parties. I hate people who throw everyone together no matter if it’s race, politics or religion.
The cost of keeping congress opened for a single day: $30,275,299. The house has voted to repeal ObamaCare 33 times. The number of times the house GOP has voted on the President’s job bill…0. Isn’t it time they start doing some real work and saving the tax payers money? If it takes one day to do the work on repealing ObamaCare that is nearly 1billion dollars wasted of tax payers money by the house GOP.
I do not do road construction, roofing, concrete work or any manual labor, BUT I do pay taxes…. So am I hard working?
Nobody disagrees that healthcare needs to be reformed. But the wrong answers will only make it worse. James Pethokoukis writes:
“In the 1960s there were 18 workers per Medicaid recipient. Today that number is 2.5”
“The number of Americans on disability has risen 19% faster than jobs created during this recovery.”
“There are just 1.2 private sector workers per 1 person on welfare or working for government.”
The number of takers is now approaching the number of makers. Facts are facts. It is basic math. What in the world are people thinking that support this thing? You can dream all you want but at some point you have to use logic to figure out what we are going to do. It is not responsible to be for something that will be such a threat to our country fiscally.
Maybe they should have done something when they held both house and senate under Bush. Oh thats right they passed the prescription drug entitlement program that helped drug companies more than anyone else. Stop watching fox news and think for yourself!
Would the James Pethokoukis you quote be the right-wing conservative blogger James Pethokoukis? Of course we should believe him because conservative right-wingers never lie or distort facts.
happyguy you might want to research what the House has passed and then how it did not go anywhere because the Senate would not even debate it but let the bills languish and never took them up or tried to compromise. You will not hear the truth on the MSM so quit being lazy and get to work and do your own homework.
The House is doing the same thing to Democratic bills. There is a bill to repair and upgrade infrastructure the House leadership will not take up, even though it would create jobs and give private business a more sound infrastructure to move their goods to market.
Why is the house wasting its time on working on a bill that won’t pass a vote in the senate and President Obama would never sign. Seems all the house republicans can do is to do nothing except try to get the President out of office. How about doing something constructive instead of destructive. Plus all they seem to do is bash the current healthcare law and have no specific proposals of their own. I’m sure if they put something out there to replace or improve the current law people would take them more seriously and maybe even like some of their ideas.
If Latham and the republicans had done something to help people with healthcare this bill never would have passed. I have never collected welfare in my life then was laid off after 25 years. Cobra ran out then was turned down for insurance because of preexisting conditions. I went uninsured for three months if I had gotten sick would have lost my rental propery I worked my whole life to pay off. That is why something has to be done and yes I know it will cost me money but at least I won’t lose everything!
Hey people check out breitbart.com for the clip of the NAACP applauding Romney on the subject of defending traditional marriage. Certainly didn’t see this on the morning main stream media shows. I would prefer they give us the whole story.
I will bet breitbart didn’t show them booing Rommney every time it happened either. You can’t get the whole story from any media outlet they all have agendas. Yes that includes your beloved conservatives also.
I don’t like the dirty way this thing was passed through with “deals” like the Cornhusker Kickback
and the Louisiana Purchase. Did you like those deals?
I don’t like the part where it will blow up every state’s Medicaid budget to try to fund this thing. States have enough problems financially. Even if the federal govt assists with a bigger percentage in funding the Medicaid budgets it will increase federal costs immensely and that means more tax increases. Also that means our money gets funneled to assist bigger cities like NY more than rural areas.
I don’t like the obesity rating they will take on me at every dental, optimetric and medical visit and then report it to the govt. Do you like that part?
The only people that want this law are the ignorant ones that haven’t read it and have no idea what it all says, pull your head out of the sand and read it then see if you still like it.
Hey David-you have to understand all the liberals care about is getting something for nothing and they are not smart enough to know that somewhere someone has to pay. Nothing is free.
so there is a thin line between liberals and welfare rats? Those on welfare that are working and trying to get off welfare, I have no problem with, welfare rats are the ones that pop out the kids and sit around all day waiting for their checks doing nothing to earn it.
Correction: Liberals cannot think for themselves. They want government to make decisions for them. They hate freedom. They love the government to feed and care for them. They are the kings and queens of the free lunch, free to themselves. They love receiving free shit from others. They keep people from excelling in the workplace by confining them in unions. They love to sit back and be deadbeats, even to the point of having other taxpayers pay for their abortions.
We have never been at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Wrong again Peter, the GOP were the ones that created the NAACP, The Dems were the ones that created the KKK. Please read your history books. Mr. Bird was one of the leaders.
I guess all those republican govenors are liberals. They took all that stimulus money and spent it just like everyone else. Corporate welfare is the worst kind of welfare and I never met a conservative that turned any of that down!
What are the parts you don’t like? Can you include chapter and section numbers so I can be more informed?
How about the part where the money just doesn’t appear from thin air, where the supreme court says it was originally written as a tax, the biggest tax in history.
Except it’s not the biggest tax increase in history. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the ACA will increase taxes 0.029% of GDP. Compare that to the following:
The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993, under Clinton, raised taxes 0.63% of GDP.
The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990, under H.W. Bush, raised taxes 0.50% of GDP.
The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility act of 1982, under Reagan, raised taxes 0.98% of GDP.
You are right, it isn’t the biggest tax in history, but it does get bigger every year.
still haven’t heard an specifics about what you don’t like. Typical republican bs. Bash it but have no ideas on what to replace it with or how to make it better.
John, The southern democrats were a bunch of racists. When Johnson passed the civil rights amendment Strom thurmond and the like became republicans but I’m sure they gave up being racists right Mr history professor. Plenty of bigots to go around so I wouldn’t be talking smack.
This is the 33rd vote the house of representatives have had on an attempt to repeal the ACA, or parts thereof.
Rep. Latham keeps spreading the lie that the law is unpopular when it really isn’t. The provision to not allow insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions is extremely popular, along with the provision that they can’t drop you when you get sick and the provision extending the time a child can stay on parent’s family coverage.
Rep. Latham keeps telling you what to think and then asks for your input.