More reasons why I HATE my Reps
copy pasted from the ontd_p post I made earlier.
Not sure this can past the muster since it is not from a news source but I think it is newsworthy.
The RAGE in me just builds every damn time I get an e-mail from my Congressman and Senators. I don't call them because I just know I will break some decency laws...especially since being put on hold just makes the RAGE increase.
John Cornyn: Why I won't support Baucus health bill (October 12, 2009 - Dallas Morning News - John "I'm a greedy lobbiest's bitch" Cornyn)
Today, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a key vote on what has become known as the Baucus bill. Like most Texans, I believe that our health care system needs reform. Millions of families have seen the cost of their private insurance skyrocket. Many are worried about losing their coverage altogether. Seniors are concerned about the future of Medicare. Texans have told me that they want to keep the coverage they have and don't want Washington to make things even worse.
I believe health care reform should focus on lowering costs, which have more than doubled over the past decade. We can lower costs by realigning incentives for providers, so they focus on value instead of volume. We can create incentives for patients to make healthier choices. We can reform the private insurance market in every state to encourage greater competition and more choices, without denying anyone coverage because of a pre-existing condition. We can lower costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in our current entitlement programs. And we can reduce costly defensive medicine by reforming our medical liability laws like we've done in Texas.
The Baucus bill, unfortunately, will only increase costs for everyone. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill will cost $829 billion, but when it's fully implemented, the Senate Budget Committee estimates the real cost to be $1.8 trillion. Either way, it would still leave 25 million Americans uninsured, impose billions of dollars in new taxes and mandates, and cut more than $400 billion from Medicare. It would take away Medicare Advantage benefits from seniors, and make Medicaid the only option for 14 million Americans.
The bill also imposes hidden costs on states. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission estimates that the Baucus bill would cost Texas more than $20 billion over 10 years and add 2.5 million Texans to Medicaid. That would mean billions in new state taxes, or draconian cuts in education, law enforcement and other Texas priorities. According to one survey, 91 percent of Texans who buy insurance in the individual market will see their premiums go up because Washington will force them to buy more expensive policies.
My colleagues and I offered several amendments that would have improved the bill. We fought to protect Medicare Advantage, and eliminate the Medicare panel that would empower bureaucrats to make coverage decisions. We tried to reform Medicaid before forcing more Americans into it. We sought to lower costs on small businesses, and enact meaningful medical liability reform. Many of our amendments would have helped President Obama keep his promises to the American people, including those related to keeping what you have, taxes on the middle class, federal funding of abortions, and benefits to illegal immigrants. Yet most of these amendments were rejected on party-line votes.
Perhaps most discouraging was the defeat of the first amendment Republicans offered to ensure a more transparent process. Sen. Jim Bunning and I proposed a 72-hour waiting period before we could vote on the bill. During those 72 hours, the actual legislative text, not just conceptual language, would have been available on the committee's website for the public to see, as well as a final price tag from the CBO. Instead we will vote on a concept, not the actual bill.
I cannot support legislation being rushed through Congress that will increase the costs of health care without giving Texans the opportunity to learn what it would mean for them. Democracy demands that government be accountable to the people, and government that is open and honest can deliver better solutions. I will continue working toward better solutions on health care reform and ensure your voice is heard.
Republican John Cornynrepresents Texas in the U.S. Senate and may be contacted through cornyn.senate.gov.
Just finished my ontd_p Ron Paul bitch post when I realize this bastard e-mailed me as well.
lol, the comments are on my side!
Hutchison Campaign Statement On Texas Forensic Science Commission
Austin, TX – With today’s comments by the Governor’s office in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Deputy Communications Director Joe Pounder issued the following statement:
“As hard as Rick Perry’s office and his campaign may try to divert from the issue, this is not about one man or one case. The issue is Rick Perry’s heavy-handed politicization of a process and Commission established by the legislature to provide critical oversight. First, Rick Perry delayed the formation of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, then he tried to ensure it didn’t have funding and when all else failed, he fired everyone he could. The only thing Rick Perry’s actions have accomplished is giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty. Kay Bailey Hutchison is a steadfast supporter of the death penalty, voted to reinstate it when she served in the Texas House and believes we should never do anything to create a cloud of controversy over it with actions that look like a cover-up.”
Texas Republican Smackdown
Gov. Rick Perry is under fire over a suspicious execution—and his secessionist talk this spring. Can his more moderate GOP rival take him down? The national GOP is watching.
A battle for the soul of the Republican Party is under way in Texas and the results could help shape how the GOP positions itself for the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.
Rick Perry has served longer than any Texas governor in the state’s history, as he seeks his third term. But he faces a major primary challenge in next year’s balloting from GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a longtime politician who, while solidly conservative, has a more moderate reputation than the incumbent. Perry is perhaps best known nationally for floating the idea this year that Texas should consider seceding from the Union, but despite his radical rhetoric he also faces a challenge from a far-right Ron Paul acolyte named Debra Medina for not taking on the federal government even harder. With questions swirling about Perry’s handling of a death-penalty case in which the condemned may have been innocent, the governor faces the toughest re-election battle of his career (recent polls show he's in a dead heat with Hutchison). The race also gives Texans the opportunity to send a signal to the national GOP about the potential direction of the party and whether they like their candidates to be very conservative, extremely conservative, or borderline militia-movement conservative.
I think if this primary goes to full finish, you're beginning to see the makeup of what a national fight would be like between, say, a [Governor Tim Pawlenty] in Minnesota and Sarah Palin, if she continues her run for 2012,” a political-science professor at Rice University, Bob Stein, told The Daily Beast. “I don't think it's extreme to say it's a fight for the hearts and minds of the Republican Party.”
Perry, who took office in 2000 when George W. Bush ascended to the White House, won’t be easy to topple. An exodus of moderates and independents has made the Republican Party more conservative nationally—a trend that is magnified in the Lone Star State. Hutchison supports Roe v. Wade, a heretical position for the Christian right, although she has consistently voted to heavily restrict abortion rights. But Texas has open primaries, meaning that Hutchison's personal appeal outside the party could bring in votes from independents and Democrats who normally don't participate in GOP contests to put her over the edge.
The latest polling from Rasmussen, conducted in September, shows Hutchison narrowly leading Perry 40 percent to 38 percent. Previous polls by the same outfit showed her as far back as 10 percentage points. It also showed both politicians to be enormously popular among prospective GOP primary voters: 72 percent viewed Perry favorably and 71 percent said the same for Hutchison.
“The big question—and this is impossible to know the answer to this far in advance of a heated primary campaign—is who is going to show up and vote,” pollster Scott Rasmussen told The Daily Beast. ”If the turnout is much larger and moves beyond the Republican base, it's better for Hutchison. If it's smaller, more of a base vote, it's better for Perry.”
Perry has been doing his best to tack to the right in recent months in preparation for the primary, gambling that the dedicated conservatives who usually show up in these elections will put him over the top. He's clashed with the base before, most notably over his decision to require Texas schoolgirls to receive HPV vaccines, a move social conservatives warned would promote promiscuity. This year, he's trying to win the base back—most prominently by associating himself with the extreme anti-government Tea Party movement that has been protesting Obama's policies. It was at one Tea Party event that Perry floated the secession notion—a move he suggested as a means of protesting federal policies. “We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that,” Perry told the audience, who reportedly were chanting “Secede!”
Hutchison argues that Perry's move to the right is scaring off moderate Republicans and independents who might otherwise back the party—a move she says could have national consequences.
"If Texas goes Democrat, we will never elect a Republican president again—not ever," she warned in one recent speech. "We cannot do it."
But it’s not clear that Hutchison has come up the kind of silver-bullet issue that would make voters send the popular long-serving governor into retirement.
“She didn't really lay out a specific program of why to get rid of the incumbent and polls show she needs to do that because those who will vote in the primary seem to view [both candidates] favorably,” Richard Murray, director of the University of Houston Center for Public Policy, told The Daily Beast.
A burgeoning scandal over executed prisoner Cameron Todd Willingham may provide her with some new ammunition, however. Willingham was convicted of killing his children by setting a fire in their home and was put to death in 2004 under Perry's watch, but never confessed to the crimes. Experts have suggested that the evidence used to convict him may been shoddy. This month, Perry removed three members of a commission that was investigating the case, leading to accusations that he was mounting a coverup. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Perry's office said the members' terms had expired and that their successors will also look at the Willingham case. But one of the removed members is now saying that he felt pressured all along by the governor not to rock the boat in the execution inquiry. And Perry's office has been refusing to make available documents on how it reacted to last-minute attempts by an attorney to convince the governor to stop the execution based on arson experts' reports.
Hutchison, who also supports the death penalty, has seized on the issue to accuse Perry of trying to silence whistleblowers. “I think it’s another case where the governor is trying to maintain a loyalty to him but not to the responsibility that the person who’s on the commission has taken to the people of Texas and our justice system,” she told the Houston Chronicle this week.
One other wild card that could affect the race is the presence of a third candidate, Debra Medina, a Tea Party activist who's gone even farther than Perry in her states' rights rhetoric. She has a fan in Ron Paul, whose army of supporters are renowned for their fundraising abilities. Her presence could alter a close race either by taking votes from one of the candidates—likely the more conservative Perry—or by keeping both of the major candidates' vote totals low enough to trigger a runoff.
Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Not sure this can past the muster since it is not from a news source but I think it is newsworthy.
Dear Ms.
Thank you for contacting my office regarding the need to level the playing field between insurance companies and physicians. I share your concern about this issue; however, rather than subject insurance companies to the economically destructive antitrust laws, I favor repealing federal laws that put physicians at a disadvantage when dealing with insurance companies. This is why I have introduced the Quality Health Care Coalition Act (HR 1493) that repeals federal laws that prevent health care providers from negotiating with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and insurance companies on a level playing field.
The Quality Health Care Coalition Act repeals federal antitrust laws that prevent medical professionals from forming professional associations to negotiate with HMOs and insurance companies. Federal laws that prevent health care professionals from combining to negotiate with HMOs and insurance companies put health care providers at an unfair disadvantage in negotiating contracts. The result of this unfairness is that individual providers often sign contracts with "gag" clauses and other restrictions on their discretion to practice medicine in the best interest of their patients--contracts they would never sign if they could combine with other health professionals to present a united front when negotiating with the insurers.
This legislation allows health care providers to voluntarily join together to seek better contract terms from insurance companies and HMOS--allowing market forces to ensure medical decisions are made by physicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, and patients, not insurance company functionaries or government bureaucrats.
In the coming months, I will work to advance this bill, along with other measures to increase medical freedom such as returning control over the health care dollar to the consumer through devices such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Thanks again for your interest in meaningful health care reform.
Sincerely,
Ron Paul
I cannot guarantee the integrity of the text of this letter if it was not sent to you directly from my Congressional Email Account: rep.paul@mail.house.gov. If you have any questions about the validity of this message, please email me at: rep.paul@mail.house.gov or call my Washington, DC office at: (202) 225-2831.
The RAGE in me just builds every damn time I get an e-mail from my Congressman and Senators. I don't call them because I just know I will break some decency laws...especially since being put on hold just makes the RAGE increase.
John Cornyn: Why I won't support Baucus health bill (October 12, 2009 - Dallas Morning News - John "I'm a greedy lobbiest's bitch" Cornyn)
Today, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a key vote on what has become known as the Baucus bill. Like most Texans, I believe that our health care system needs reform. Millions of families have seen the cost of their private insurance skyrocket. Many are worried about losing their coverage altogether. Seniors are concerned about the future of Medicare. Texans have told me that they want to keep the coverage they have and don't want Washington to make things even worse.
I believe health care reform should focus on lowering costs, which have more than doubled over the past decade. We can lower costs by realigning incentives for providers, so they focus on value instead of volume. We can create incentives for patients to make healthier choices. We can reform the private insurance market in every state to encourage greater competition and more choices, without denying anyone coverage because of a pre-existing condition. We can lower costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in our current entitlement programs. And we can reduce costly defensive medicine by reforming our medical liability laws like we've done in Texas.
The Baucus bill, unfortunately, will only increase costs for everyone. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill will cost $829 billion, but when it's fully implemented, the Senate Budget Committee estimates the real cost to be $1.8 trillion. Either way, it would still leave 25 million Americans uninsured, impose billions of dollars in new taxes and mandates, and cut more than $400 billion from Medicare. It would take away Medicare Advantage benefits from seniors, and make Medicaid the only option for 14 million Americans.
The bill also imposes hidden costs on states. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission estimates that the Baucus bill would cost Texas more than $20 billion over 10 years and add 2.5 million Texans to Medicaid. That would mean billions in new state taxes, or draconian cuts in education, law enforcement and other Texas priorities. According to one survey, 91 percent of Texans who buy insurance in the individual market will see their premiums go up because Washington will force them to buy more expensive policies.
My colleagues and I offered several amendments that would have improved the bill. We fought to protect Medicare Advantage, and eliminate the Medicare panel that would empower bureaucrats to make coverage decisions. We tried to reform Medicaid before forcing more Americans into it. We sought to lower costs on small businesses, and enact meaningful medical liability reform. Many of our amendments would have helped President Obama keep his promises to the American people, including those related to keeping what you have, taxes on the middle class, federal funding of abortions, and benefits to illegal immigrants. Yet most of these amendments were rejected on party-line votes.
Perhaps most discouraging was the defeat of the first amendment Republicans offered to ensure a more transparent process. Sen. Jim Bunning and I proposed a 72-hour waiting period before we could vote on the bill. During those 72 hours, the actual legislative text, not just conceptual language, would have been available on the committee's website for the public to see, as well as a final price tag from the CBO. Instead we will vote on a concept, not the actual bill.
I cannot support legislation being rushed through Congress that will increase the costs of health care without giving Texans the opportunity to learn what it would mean for them. Democracy demands that government be accountable to the people, and government that is open and honest can deliver better solutions. I will continue working toward better solutions on health care reform and ensure your voice is heard.
Republican John Cornynrepresents Texas in the U.S. Senate and may be contacted through cornyn.senate.gov.
Just finished my ontd_p Ron Paul bitch post when I realize this bastard e-mailed me as well.
lol, the comments are on my side!
Hutchison Campaign Statement On Texas Forensic Science Commission
Austin, TX – With today’s comments by the Governor’s office in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Deputy Communications Director Joe Pounder issued the following statement:
“As hard as Rick Perry’s office and his campaign may try to divert from the issue, this is not about one man or one case. The issue is Rick Perry’s heavy-handed politicization of a process and Commission established by the legislature to provide critical oversight. First, Rick Perry delayed the formation of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, then he tried to ensure it didn’t have funding and when all else failed, he fired everyone he could. The only thing Rick Perry’s actions have accomplished is giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty. Kay Bailey Hutchison is a steadfast supporter of the death penalty, voted to reinstate it when she served in the Texas House and believes we should never do anything to create a cloud of controversy over it with actions that look like a cover-up.”
Texas Republican Smackdown
Gov. Rick Perry is under fire over a suspicious execution—and his secessionist talk this spring. Can his more moderate GOP rival take him down? The national GOP is watching.
A battle for the soul of the Republican Party is under way in Texas and the results could help shape how the GOP positions itself for the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.
Rick Perry has served longer than any Texas governor in the state’s history, as he seeks his third term. But he faces a major primary challenge in next year’s balloting from GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a longtime politician who, while solidly conservative, has a more moderate reputation than the incumbent. Perry is perhaps best known nationally for floating the idea this year that Texas should consider seceding from the Union, but despite his radical rhetoric he also faces a challenge from a far-right Ron Paul acolyte named Debra Medina for not taking on the federal government even harder. With questions swirling about Perry’s handling of a death-penalty case in which the condemned may have been innocent, the governor faces the toughest re-election battle of his career (recent polls show he's in a dead heat with Hutchison). The race also gives Texans the opportunity to send a signal to the national GOP about the potential direction of the party and whether they like their candidates to be very conservative, extremely conservative, or borderline militia-movement conservative.
I think if this primary goes to full finish, you're beginning to see the makeup of what a national fight would be like between, say, a [Governor Tim Pawlenty] in Minnesota and Sarah Palin, if she continues her run for 2012,” a political-science professor at Rice University, Bob Stein, told The Daily Beast. “I don't think it's extreme to say it's a fight for the hearts and minds of the Republican Party.”
Perry, who took office in 2000 when George W. Bush ascended to the White House, won’t be easy to topple. An exodus of moderates and independents has made the Republican Party more conservative nationally—a trend that is magnified in the Lone Star State. Hutchison supports Roe v. Wade, a heretical position for the Christian right, although she has consistently voted to heavily restrict abortion rights. But Texas has open primaries, meaning that Hutchison's personal appeal outside the party could bring in votes from independents and Democrats who normally don't participate in GOP contests to put her over the edge.
The latest polling from Rasmussen, conducted in September, shows Hutchison narrowly leading Perry 40 percent to 38 percent. Previous polls by the same outfit showed her as far back as 10 percentage points. It also showed both politicians to be enormously popular among prospective GOP primary voters: 72 percent viewed Perry favorably and 71 percent said the same for Hutchison.
“The big question—and this is impossible to know the answer to this far in advance of a heated primary campaign—is who is going to show up and vote,” pollster Scott Rasmussen told The Daily Beast. ”If the turnout is much larger and moves beyond the Republican base, it's better for Hutchison. If it's smaller, more of a base vote, it's better for Perry.”
Perry has been doing his best to tack to the right in recent months in preparation for the primary, gambling that the dedicated conservatives who usually show up in these elections will put him over the top. He's clashed with the base before, most notably over his decision to require Texas schoolgirls to receive HPV vaccines, a move social conservatives warned would promote promiscuity. This year, he's trying to win the base back—most prominently by associating himself with the extreme anti-government Tea Party movement that has been protesting Obama's policies. It was at one Tea Party event that Perry floated the secession notion—a move he suggested as a means of protesting federal policies. “We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that,” Perry told the audience, who reportedly were chanting “Secede!”
Hutchison argues that Perry's move to the right is scaring off moderate Republicans and independents who might otherwise back the party—a move she says could have national consequences.
"If Texas goes Democrat, we will never elect a Republican president again—not ever," she warned in one recent speech. "We cannot do it."
But it’s not clear that Hutchison has come up the kind of silver-bullet issue that would make voters send the popular long-serving governor into retirement.
“She didn't really lay out a specific program of why to get rid of the incumbent and polls show she needs to do that because those who will vote in the primary seem to view [both candidates] favorably,” Richard Murray, director of the University of Houston Center for Public Policy, told The Daily Beast.
A burgeoning scandal over executed prisoner Cameron Todd Willingham may provide her with some new ammunition, however. Willingham was convicted of killing his children by setting a fire in their home and was put to death in 2004 under Perry's watch, but never confessed to the crimes. Experts have suggested that the evidence used to convict him may been shoddy. This month, Perry removed three members of a commission that was investigating the case, leading to accusations that he was mounting a coverup. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Perry's office said the members' terms had expired and that their successors will also look at the Willingham case. But one of the removed members is now saying that he felt pressured all along by the governor not to rock the boat in the execution inquiry. And Perry's office has been refusing to make available documents on how it reacted to last-minute attempts by an attorney to convince the governor to stop the execution based on arson experts' reports.
Hutchison, who also supports the death penalty, has seized on the issue to accuse Perry of trying to silence whistleblowers. “I think it’s another case where the governor is trying to maintain a loyalty to him but not to the responsibility that the person who’s on the commission has taken to the people of Texas and our justice system,” she told the Houston Chronicle this week.
One other wild card that could affect the race is the presence of a third candidate, Debra Medina, a Tea Party activist who's gone even farther than Perry in her states' rights rhetoric. She has a fan in Ron Paul, whose army of supporters are renowned for their fundraising abilities. Her presence could alter a close race either by taking votes from one of the candidates—likely the more conservative Perry—or by keeping both of the major candidates' vote totals low enough to trigger a runoff.
Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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