OK, folks, it's time to get serious. When both the AMA and the AARP come out in favor of the health-care bill currently working its way through Congress, and you're still listening to the naysayers, it’s time to recognize that you’re being played for a sucker.
Those fighting to kill health-care reform are not interested in you or your well-being. They are only interested in political power and maximum profit for themselves at your expense.
End of story. Case closed.
Write, email, or call your congressional representatives and tell them you’re on to the scam and that you expect Congress to pass health-care legislation that protects your interests and not those of the health-insurance industry and their well-paid lobbyists.
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Publication: The Columbus Dispatch; Date: Nov. 6, 2009; Section: Nation & World; Page: A3
AMA, AARP like health-care bill
Groups’ backing contrasts protest from tea partiers
By Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Buoyed by two major endorsements, House Democratic leaders yesterday predicted swift passage of President Barack Obama’s historic health-overhaul initiative.
The president himself declared, “We are closer to passing this reform than ever before.”
With a vote set for Saturday, momentum gathered behind the legislation to remake the U.S. health-care system and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured. The American Medical Association and the powerful seniors’ lobby AARP both threw their weight behind the bill yesterday. AARP, with its 40 million members, promised to run ads to gin up support.
“I urge Congress to listen to AARP, listen to the AMA, and pass this reform for hundreds of millions of Americans who will benefit from it,” Obama said during a visit to the White House briefing room after the endorsements were announced.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Democrats were listening.
“We are right on the brink,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We have an historic opportunity for us to again provide quality health care for all Americans. It is something that many of us have worked our whole political lifetimes on.”
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were working to negotiate final language on abortion and illegal immigration and nail down the 218 votes they’ll need to pass the bill. Obama planned to give them an assist todayAlso yesterday, AARP of Ohio endorsed the House bill.
Joanne Limbach, the AARP’s state president, said that as “Ohio’s congressional delegation prepares to vote, they will hear from older Ohioans.”
Yesterday’s endorsement by the American Medical Association contrasted with the Ohio State Medical Association’s condemnation of the same proposal a day earlier.
Just before Obama appeared before reporters yesterday, thousands of conservatives rallied outside the Capitol where they listened to speaker after speaker — ranging from actor Jon Voight to House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester — denounce the House bill.
“This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in my 19 years in Washington,” Boehner said. “This bill will take away your freedom to choose your doctor, the freedom to buy health insurance on your own, and will lead to tens of thousands of new government bureaucrats down the street making decisions for you.”
Actor John Ratzenberger, who played the role of Cliff on the comedy hit Cheers, went even further, charging that “these people who are trying to force this health-care bill upon us are not the philosophical descendents” of President John F. Kennedy, but instead the “philosophical descendents of Abbie Hoffman,” the 1960s anti-war radical.
As the crowd chanted “kill the bill,” many waved American flags or carried signs, including “Stop Obama’s death panels,” or “Obama listens to Mao, I listen to Fox News.”
Sarah Williams, 18, a student at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia who is from central Ohio, said lawmakers have been getting “tons of e-mails and letters” from people who oppose health-care reform and “they’re still not listening.”
Late yesterday, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, took part in an online chat about health care. He insisted that the bill does not radically change the U.S. system, saying that “we’re doing it building around what we have now. We’re preserving the best we have in the system.”
End of story. Case closed.
Write, email, or call your congressional representatives and tell them you’re on to the scam and that you expect Congress to pass health-care legislation that protects your interests and not those of the health-insurance industry and their well-paid lobbyists.
===
Publication: The Columbus Dispatch; Date: Nov. 6, 2009; Section: Nation & World; Page: A3
AMA, AARP like health-care bill
Groups’ backing contrasts protest from tea partiers
By Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Buoyed by two major endorsements, House Democratic leaders yesterday predicted swift passage of President Barack Obama’s historic health-overhaul initiative.
The president himself declared, “We are closer to passing this reform than ever before.”
With a vote set for Saturday, momentum gathered behind the legislation to remake the U.S. health-care system and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured. The American Medical Association and the powerful seniors’ lobby AARP both threw their weight behind the bill yesterday. AARP, with its 40 million members, promised to run ads to gin up support.
“I urge Congress to listen to AARP, listen to the AMA, and pass this reform for hundreds of millions of Americans who will benefit from it,” Obama said during a visit to the White House briefing room after the endorsements were announced.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Democrats were listening.
“We are right on the brink,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We have an historic opportunity for us to again provide quality health care for all Americans. It is something that many of us have worked our whole political lifetimes on.”
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were working to negotiate final language on abortion and illegal immigration and nail down the 218 votes they’ll need to pass the bill. Obama planned to give them an assist todayAlso yesterday, AARP of Ohio endorsed the House bill.
Joanne Limbach, the AARP’s state president, said that as “Ohio’s congressional delegation prepares to vote, they will hear from older Ohioans.”
Yesterday’s endorsement by the American Medical Association contrasted with the Ohio State Medical Association’s condemnation of the same proposal a day earlier.
Just before Obama appeared before reporters yesterday, thousands of conservatives rallied outside the Capitol where they listened to speaker after speaker — ranging from actor Jon Voight to House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester — denounce the House bill.
“This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in my 19 years in Washington,” Boehner said. “This bill will take away your freedom to choose your doctor, the freedom to buy health insurance on your own, and will lead to tens of thousands of new government bureaucrats down the street making decisions for you.”
Actor John Ratzenberger, who played the role of Cliff on the comedy hit Cheers, went even further, charging that “these people who are trying to force this health-care bill upon us are not the philosophical descendents” of President John F. Kennedy, but instead the “philosophical descendents of Abbie Hoffman,” the 1960s anti-war radical.
As the crowd chanted “kill the bill,” many waved American flags or carried signs, including “Stop Obama’s death panels,” or “Obama listens to Mao, I listen to Fox News.”
Sarah Williams, 18, a student at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia who is from central Ohio, said lawmakers have been getting “tons of e-mails and letters” from people who oppose health-care reform and “they’re still not listening.”
Late yesterday, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, took part in an online chat about health care. He insisted that the bill does not radically change the U.S. system, saying that “we’re doing it building around what we have now. We’re preserving the best we have in the system.”
Demonstrators opposing to health-care reform were joined on Capitol Hill by Republican members of Congress. “Kill the bill” was their chant.
Dispatch Washington bureau reporter Jack Torry contributed to this story.
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