Change That Works Hits Tanner For Health Care Vote
Posted on July 17, 2009 at 2:23 pmBy voting against America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) before the House Ways & Means Committee, Rep. John Tanner voted against fixing our broken health care system.
“When I see Congressman Tanner voting against acting now to improve health care, it tells me that he’s profoundly out of touch with ordinary working people in West Tennessee,” said Ella Parham of Jackson. “I was looking forward to retirement after my career as a teacher. Now I have to keep working to help pay for health care. Failing to fix health care is not an option. We can’t afford to wait any longer for real health care reform.”
Tennesseans need reform now in order to save their hard-earned wages. Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 77 percent in Tennessee, at a rate almost 3 times as fast as wages. Tennessee businesses and families pay an extra $900 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.
“Thousands of Tennesseans are standing up and speaking out about the need for reform that provides access to quality, affordable health care for every man, woman, and child,” said Tony Cani, State Director of SEIU’s Change that Works campaign in Tennessee. “Putting the brakes on meaningful reform means doing nothing to hold down costs, doing nothing to help working people get secure health care, and doing nothing to protect the quality of health care. Rep. Tanner should stand with Tennesseans, not the special interests.”
Comments
25 Responses to “Change That Works Hits Tanner For Health Care Vote”
And let’s not forget that John Tanner gave money to Mike McWherter . . . shame!
The CBO makes a very clear case that this health care bill is NOT going to save anyone money, takes much of the personal choice out of the marketplace. The bill makes it illegal for a person to purchase a private health insurance plan that does not meet strict government standards designed to force private insurers out of business, while claiming to protect choice.
You present a false argument by claiming that because we need reform, we need THIS reform. THIS reform is good for nobody except those that want to reward their cronies with jobs in the new bureaucracies created by this monstrosity of a bill.
We need tort reform. We need the option to buy high-deductible catastrophic-only policies. We need measures to control the cost of CASH PRICES of health care, rather than forcing everyone to have health INSURANCE that pays for every cough and sniffle.
Tanner made the right move, this healthcare plan is nothing but a multi-trillion dollar project to force us all to live under a system that has the efficiency of the DMV and the compassion of the IRS.
“Tanner made the right move, this healthcare plan is nothing but a multi-trillion dollar project to force us all to live under a system that has the efficiency of the DMV and the compassion of the IRS.”
VERY well said… Thank you sir.
Thats easy for you all to say with your GOOD insurance, switch with the working people who still cant afford it and go broke and those that die from the lack of it. Im sure you both are “good” Christians standing up for the poor private companies. Good forbid YOU ALL have any serious life threatening illnesses or accidents and see life from a different view.
“Black Community”
I am 25, uninsured, and the son of a coal miner. I worked my way through college, and became the first in my family to get a Bachelor’s degree. Since getting that degree, I’ve been straddling the poverty line and paying student loans, driving decades old cars, and rarely making ends completely meet. You need to give up your stereo-typing and realize that not everyone that opposes this mass government takeover is some kind of evil corporate lackey.
People that are THAT broke get medicaid, TennCare, etc. The people that die are the people in places where private insurance is illegal, and the rationing board in their government says they can’t have care, or have to wait 9 months for cancer meds. That’s the reality in Canada and most of europe.
Vince, there is simply nothing in this bill that makes it “illegal for a person to purchase a private health insurance plan”; that is a very simple lie.
HR3200 sets up a national exchange that offers everyone a choice of private plans and a public option that drives competition. This is not unlike the exchange offered to Federal employees. They have some of the best insurance in the country.
The fact fewer working Americans can afford insurance every day. The Republicans and the Democrats they’ve intimidated ask us to trust the same special interests that have prospered from our broken system.
Finally working Americans care buy insurance (yes private insurance) that will have to compete for their business rather than dictate terms of care to us.
There is no (BOO) “MASS GOVERNMENT TAKE OVER” of the health care system. So you came up from nothing, still on the poverty line working hard to make it, just as I have and am, then how do you vote against policies that will HELP you. This is not a political gamble, this is a moral responsibility amongst our citizenry, period, point, blank. If you were to walk outside today and break your leg or whatever, what are you going to do. How will you pay that $10,000 dollar plus hospital bill along with student loans, rent, food, car without going broke or homeless?
Let me say again, just like the boogey man does not exist, neither does a “government takeover of health care” exist in hr 3200!!
Vince: “I am 25, uninsured,”
Why are you uninsured, if I may ask?
“We need measures to control the cost of CASH PRICES of health care, rather than forcing everyone to have health INSURANCE that pays for every cough and sniffle.”
Catching coughs, sniffles, and other “little stuff” leads to the prevention of pneumonia and larger diseases. I don’t see a problem with providing an incentive for preventative care since it usually heads off larger costs down the road.
Black I dont know about Vince. But Ive said this before and Ill say it again. Living on government health insurance will not make things better. Ive lived that life black and it just doesnt work my friend. Last summer I had to pay around $200 for one of my late mother’s prescriptions. I didnt like it but I paid it because mom needed it. We went to eat afterwards at applebee’s. I sat there black and looked at mom. She was smiling,my sister was smiling as was my girlfriend as we ate. Black I dont recall any of us ever smiling when my dad had medicaid and medicare and was fighting cancer. Government healthcare programs just arent what you guys are making them out to be my friend.
I am uninsured because it is my personal choice to be uninsured. Insurance is a risk pool, and my risk is not high enough to justify joining that pool. Healthcare and health insurance are not synonyms. Paying cash for me, even when I’m footing the bill for illegal aliens and 100,000 dollar malpractice insurance policies on top of my occasional doctor visit, is still cheaper than buying insurance.
To the previous question… have you read the bill? all 1018 pages? If not I’ll save you some time, just finds sections 101 and 102. Private insurance will only be legal in 2 instances.
1. You already have it, and your employer doesn’t elect to get rid of it because the tax-funded plan saves them money.
2. You’re willing to buy a government-dictated “private” plan that will cost more than the same plan underwritten by the taxpayers.
Obama has said repetitively that he sees this public option as a stepping stone to single payer… a way to keep the naysayers at bay. It’s a gateway drug…
Lets not bring “illegals” into the fold, statistics show that the TRUE illegals only account for 5% or less of the health care cost. Im not for TRUE illegal immigrants receiving services for free that i cant afford, but wasn’t it Bush who wanted amnesty?
But Dan, Congress has a form of Medicaid under article five of their insurance. It is “GOVERNMENT” ran. Even Though we may disagree respectfully on the bill or reform itself, we MUST be able to agree on the fact that the administrative cost and overhead cost and advertising cost that the drug companies pass on to US is totally unacceptable.
It is one thing to make great profits and be a successful company. but it is yet another to deploy greed into the system and the cost of human lives. HEALTH CARE REFORM IS TRULY A PRO-LIFE ISSUE!
If private insurance companies are doing such a bang-up job of regulating their own markets, then why does it take government intervention to get them to quit blocking people from access for pre-existing conditions? And why are so many Americans in job-lock situations, afraid to leave because their health insurance will end and they won’t be able to sign up for new coverage because (gasp!) they have health problems?
The reality is that John McCain, and other cancer survivors, could never get a private insurance to accept them as a customer. We need healthcare reform to force insurance companies to cover ALL Americans, not just the relatively well-off and healthy. Why do you want to keep funneling money down the pipeline to private health insurers, who siphon off 18% of all healthcare dollars? Why do you want to keep paying rising premium rates that vastly outstrip increases in wages? If it take a government plan to step in and show these crooks what actually insuring people looks like, I’m all for it. So far, nothing else has made them stop their pilfering ways.
Glad to see Tanner get’s it! Good job!
Let’s see
VA government run health care is very lacking.
TNcare is a drain on the state
Medicare/Medicad is almost bankrupt
Social Security soon will be bankrupt
Matter of fact the majority of entitlement programs are failures. Instead of fixing them more $$ are borrorwed to throw at them.
There is no plan to fix the health care crisis for the only to suck more power away from the people at the hands of some extremly power hungry people. So greedy they will provide Americans with third rate health care because they have taked all to death and China will not lend them any more $$$.
Stop taking from me to give to others. Teach others how to get their own.
SEIU=UNION
lol, change that works? what a joke! Do they say that with a straight face? Have they not checked the national debt lately?
The union, acorn and affiliates always seem to be right there $benefiting$ from obama’s mad take over of the free market.
yeah Tanner gets it alright. He, Gordon, Cooper will all be getting it in the unemployment line if this doesnt pass, and the constituents will see to that. Believe it.
Tanner voted against spending 1.6 Trillion dollars to insure only 5,000,000 people.
The CBO said this Healthcare plan was
1. not affordable
2. Would not cover the uninsured
3. Did not reduce the Cost of Healthcare.
In other words, he voted against the Stupidity of this Administration and Congressional leadership.
Cap and Trade not the Healthcare vote will get them fired.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/healthcare/july_2009/50_oppose_government_health_insurance_company
Would it be a good idea to set up a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurance companies?
Yes
35%
No
50%
Not Sure
15%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/56_don_t_want_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_warming
56% Don’t Want To Pay More To Fight Global Warming
It will be the yes vote on Cap and trade that gets many of the Blue dogs, not the vote against healthcare Reform.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/56_don_t_want_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_warming
56% Don’t Want To Pay More To Fight Global Warming
Would it be a good idea to set up a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurance companies?
Yes
35%
No
50%
Not Sure
15%
TNVol — lying again about health care when he says:
“The CBO said this Healthcare plan was
1. not affordable
2. Would not cover the uninsured
3. Did not reduce the Cost of Healthcare.”
You were quoting the CBO BEFORE they finished scoring the whole bill, you liar.
Here’s what the CBO’s FINAL REPORT (from July 19)says:
“America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, is deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window – and even produces a $6 billion surplus. CBO estimated more than $550 billion in gross Medicare and Medicaid savings. More importantly, the bill includes a comprehensive array of delivery reforms to set the stage for lowering the future growth in health care costs.”
Don’t believe it, you right-wing liar? Read it yourself before you keep mouthing off:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10464/hr3200.pdf
SEIU is the number one union for illegal aliens.
I could sit here and quote a million figures, and to my friend with the quote from the bill congratulations. But that is not the first time I have seen it either. At any rate, I have to agree with the idea that maybe this is part of a bigger plan. But at this point to sit and do nothing is foolish. Catastrophic coverage is foolish, wasteful and drives up costs, espcially when considering the amount of diseases that are related to chronic, treatable illnesses. And to be foolish enough to assess the value of your life bask on risk measurements is immeasurable. I am speechless, after that comment. The idea of the government is this, to give us a voice. Americans spoke loudly during the election that we need healthcare reform. Now that said, no bill is perfect, but as long as some of the power to control what goes into it rests in our hands I am happy. If left to their own devices do you really believe the private insurers would do it. The fact of it all is this, we must act quickly and decisively, there will be flaws, but as long as we have some say and moreover the ability to fix it what more can you ask for. The longer we wait the more difficult any action becomes, because the companies will continue to fortify their positions and the people in Congress and this administration with the ability to do anything will be weakened. We must consider the alternative to taking action. Is standing still really the best option for America.
Corndawg.. Really.. the CBO was on CSpan giving his reprot to Congress on 7/16/2009.
I Made my comments on 7/19/2009.
The report I quoted a report that had been released 48 HOURS PRIOR to my post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html
DAWG, apparently, I knew of what I spoke.
7/19/2009 is TWO days AFTER 7/16/2009.
Sorry that would be 3 days. not two days.
i think you need to vote against the health care bill all that needs said