Paul Ille [dot] com

I haven’t really had much time lately, but I figure it’s important to do what you can. I know getting involved with politics is painful, but it’s not about the politics. It’s about you and your children. It’s about what you believe in.

Recently I took a little bit of time to at least contact my representitives via e-mail regarding the health care reform. I’m not sure it’ll help, but it’s all the time I can spend right now.

It’s fairly easy to do. Look up your representitives using the following page.

Congress.org
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/

In New Jersey here I contacted 3 people:
Senator Robert Menendez (D) Senator_Menendez@menendez.senate.gov
Rep. Scott Garrett (R) scott.garrett@mail.house.gov
Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D) senator@lautenberg.senate.gov

Lautenberg is the guy I contacted a while back to ask him to cleanup his political campaign signs in Nutely, NJ. I’m sure he didn’t know they were still up almost a year after he got elected, but I have to say, they were down within 2 weeks of my email.

Anyway, I received a quick and thorough response from Rep. Garrett, but the others just replied with a generic email reply saying they’d get to my email. I know Rep. Garret’s response wasn’t personalized, but it was something. Here was his response:

Dear Mr. Ille:

Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 3962, the Health Care for all Americans Act. I appreciate having the benefit of your thoughts on this legislation and appreciate the opportunity to respond.

H.R. 3962 was introduced on October 29, 2009 by Congressman John Dingell (MI-15). While H.R. 3962 was not formally marked up by any Congressional Committees, the legislation, while differing in some ways, closely resembles H.R. 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, which was marked up by the Committees on Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor earlier this year. On November 7, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962 by a vote of 220-215.

Over the course of this past year, I have said repeatedly that our nation’s health care system is in need of reform. Indeed, most advocates for reform, Republican and Democrat alike, can agree on the problems that need to be addressed: health insurance is too expensive, and is tied too closely to our employers; federal spending on health care is too high and projected to go higher; and a certain segment of the population has difficulty accessing the health care system because of chronic disease, disability, or other reasons. But it is also important to remember that our health care system has many strengths, such as leading the world in medical innovation. I firmly believe that health care reform should build on these strengths, while finding innovative solutions to address its problems.

The nearly 2,000 pages of H.R. 3962 is not real health care reform. It is instead an unprecedented $1.2 Trillion expansion of our nation’s bankrupt entitlement programs, and the creation of a vast new entitlement. As Jeffrey Flier, the Dean of Harvard Medical School wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Health Reform Gets a Failing Grade”:

“In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system.”

One of the primary goals of health care reform has been to reduce the nation’s spending on health care, or to “bend the cost curve.” On November 13th, 6 days after the House considered H.R. 3962, the Obama Administration’s Chief Actuary of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Richard Foster, published a report that said our country would actually spend $289 Billion more on health care as a result of passing H.R. 3962 than if it did nothing at all! In other words, the legislation would bend the cost curve, but it would bend it up. Furthermore, the vast majority of provisions contained in the legislation aimed at slowing the pace of rising costs would have a “relatively small savings impact.”

To pay for all this new spending the bill would impose, in the midst of an economic downturn, $729.5 Billion in new taxes on small businesses, individuals who cannot afford health coverage, and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage. It would also force $282 Billion in draconian cuts on doctors and hospitals that care for our nation’s seniors in the Medicare program. According to the CMS Chief Actuary this could lead to doctors and hospitals leaving the Medicare program, “possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries.”

Real health care reform would increase health care portability by making health care plans less dependent on our employers; make health care more affordable; increase quality and innovation; and be sustainable. H.R. 3962 fails to meet every single one of these goals. For these reasons, I firmly oppose this approach to health care reform, and voted no when the bill was considered in the House of Representatives. I continue to hope that in the coming months President Obama and the Congressional leadership will work to find bipartisan solutions to our nation’s health care problems, and I stand ready to work with the Administration if they will listen.

Thank you for contacting me. Should you have any further questions or comments about this or any legislative issue, please do not hesitate to contact me in my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 225-4465. Also, please visit my website at http://garrett.house.gov/to sign up for my e-newsletter for the latest updates.

Sincerely,
Scott Garrett
Member of Congress

I agree with him except for the fact that he hopes leadership will find a bipartisan solution. I don’t want this to pass in any shape or form. There ARE issues that need to be fixed, but this bill is so bloated, full of non-sensical, over-the-top ideas, control, promises without backing, entitlements, favors for politicians to go along…you name it.

I can’t imagine how we think a government who can’t run the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security (among others) is going to run 1/6th of the U.S. economy. I mean seriously? Do you think they can?

Post Office Desperate For Financial Help
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/25/national/main4891188.shtml

U.S. Postal Service: Escalating Financial Problems Require Major Cost Reductions to Limit Losses
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-475T

U.S. Federal Budget: Medicare and Medicaid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Medicare_and_Medicaid

U.S. Federal Budget: Social Security
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Social_Security

Granted, I won’t say the ideas behind Medicare and Social Security are completely bad. It’s just the way they’d done. Before Social Security, our seniors were horrified to grow old. There was a huge unknown about whether or not they would have enough money to live. But do we need the government to rock us to sleep at night or maybe just to give us a little hand? I’ve said it before. I’d like to see the government allow people to put money tax free aside each week that THEY manage. We don’t need big Mommy telling us what to do with our hard earned cash.

Did you see this latest story?

Exclusive: Jobs ‘Saved or Created’ in Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853

And then did you know the website that had this information wrong, you spent 18 million on? lol YES, don’t forget you paid for it.

$18M Being Spent to Redesign Recovery.gov Web Site
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent-to-redesign-recoverygov-web-site.html

Did you realize someone could spend 18 million dollars on a website and it still doesn’t have correct information?

Our elected officials are becoming far too self serving and brave to think we’ve forgotten who is in charge. They work for us, not the other way around. We need to make sure we hold them accountable for this insanely irresponsible fiscal behavior.

Rasmussen: Health Care Reform
This says “Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan”

38% is a LOT of people, but it’s clearly not the majority. Why are they still going forward? There was more support for Hillary-care back during the Bill Clinton presidency and they dropped it then because of the lack of support. Apparently our politicians are growing bolder and bolder.

I’d much rather see smaller changes first. This 2,000 page bill is just too unmanageable and stealthy.

For instance, there are many ideas out there that should cut the costs of health care. Just a couple easy ones are allowing health care to be sold across state lines and to take a look at tort reform. There’s also other ideas regarding patents for various types of drugs. If the government wants more competition, wouldn’t allowing companies to sell health care across state lines do that?

Look, hey, ‘poke!’.

Whatever your political persuasion is, and whatever you think about this health care reform, get in touch with the people you elected to represent you. Email is good, phone is better, but if you really want to make sure you’re acknowledged, stop by with a sandwich for them. If you disagree don’t let them think you agree by remaining silent. Stand up and be counted!

If you agree with it, so be it. Even though we’re on different sides of the issue, I’d recommend you show up with a sandwich anyway.

I’ve never written anywhere on the net about politics, but lately I find that I’m becoming more and more passionate about the topic and it’s driving me to say ’something’ about it. Maybe it’s because I’ve recently bought a house and started a family or maybe it’s because I feel like so many things are changing. But here I am…writing the word ‘changing’ as if it’s something new. I mean, let me make no mistake,… it is changing and it seems to me that it’s changing fast, but I feel even though I’ve been following politics for some time now, I’ve just recently started to realize more and more how much it’s been CHANGING for quite some time.

Look, I know most people would rather not pay attention to politics. I don’t GET it, but I know it’s true. I think most people are willingly distracted with anything else and I think there’s a large part of the people in this country who take what we have for granted thinking it just runs itself. Unfortunatley, I tend to think it’s running itself into the ground and I agree with the Founding Fathers who repeatedly said that the people must stay involved or they will lose this country. And while I’m sure someone is saying “Who’s this guy saying we’re going to misplace America?”, laughing as if I’m a moron,…unfortunately, it’s true. We could lose the Republic they built for us. You have to seriously consider what this COUNTRY is. It’s something special.

But hey! Wait! lol Before you tune out, glazing over like a Krispy Creme, give me a chance. I promise my intention isn’t to take something from you, but instead to give something to you.

Let’s think about how we got here.

England had become overbearing and attempted to govern us to no end so we dumped England’s tea in the water and told them to go to hell with their taxes. After warring and bloodshed, the founding fathers then struggled hard with devising a plan to create a goverment that not only didn’t resemble England, but that would hopefully never BECOME England. Every effort was taken even to the extent that separate branches of goverment were created to avoid having one branch control too much. And when they wrote the constitution, they did it to limit the federal goverment’s abilites by stating that if the constitution didn’t expressly give them rights, they didn’t have them. All rights not expressly given were states rights or the rights of the people themselves.  Their idea was that the people would control the goverment and not the other way around as in England.

The entire idea boils down to three big words. FREEDOM FROM GOVERNMENT. They made sure to build in freedoms that could not be taken away such as the freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly, petition and the right to own guns. These freedoms ensured that the goverment would never have power to such an extreme that ‘we the people’ couldn’t stand up and demand their immediate change of direction.  The Bill of Rights was not only created to provide us with freedoms, but to make sure our goverment would also not treat us unfairly. The Founders wanted to make sure that, unlike in England, the accused were presumed innocent until proven guilty and the people would not be punished in cruel and unusual ways. These gestures, every last one of them, were intended to protect us from our government. 

So, why on Earth would the people who helped form our government be so worried about protecting us from it? Because they knew, while they built the goverment with every intention of it being good and just, power had a way of corrupting. They knew that governments, while starting small, over time, could easily transform into a controlling body that dictated to the people just as England did.

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

The founding fathers repeatedly pointed out that any form of government is a necessary evil and that it should be kept small and close to the people so it didn’t become what they called, an ”out of control monster taking on a life of it’s own.” They didn’t want the government to become a giant nanny rocking us to sleep each night. They wanted us to take care of OURSELVES. They never wanted the goverment to take care of us to any great extent because that would mean they controlled us. Control was the eventual progression they were trying so desperately to avoid because with every ounce of control goes an ounce of freedom.

Today, let’s take national health care, welfare, medicare and social security as four good examples. Our hard earned cash goes to the federal government and they dole it out with whatever rules they see fit. Did you know that there are provisions in the new national health care bill to have you and me pay for state workers to visit the homes of young families to provide parents with “well-being, health, and development of children.” classes?? Does it bother you that the government will come into your home and try to tell you how to raise your kids?? This is just one part of the bill that is over-stepping it’s bounds. (reference – http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/17/stealth-agenda-in-health-care-bill-early-childhood-home-visitation/) As far as welfare and medicare, the waste and fraud associated with those two ’services’ is insane. Do a Google for Medicade Fraud and you’ll find enough data on that program alone.

Let’s consider social security. Do you realize that the money in the social security surplus they always talk about doesn’t really exist because the government exchanges the excess monies with government bonds? Basically the government is TAKING, I’m sorry, BORROWING you money without YOUR permission. (reference – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124709721624415177.html#articleTabs%3Darticle)

“A lot of people in America think there is a [social security] trust [fund] — that we take your money in payroll taxes and then we hold it for you and then when you retire, we give it back to you, but that’s not the way it works. There is no trust ‘fund’ — just IOUs that I saw firsthand.” George W. Bush

Why can’t we just have the social security money taken out of our check in a 401(k) manner and deposited into a retirement account tax free? Wouldn’t this be a better idea? Why doesn’t the government want us to have the power to handle these things? Do they see us as children or do they just want power.

I assure you the same type of mismanagement and fraud take place in the other existing programs and will surely take place in a nationalized health care plan. Have you seen this thing? If you think your money gets lost going to social security, just wait until it goes into this machine. Here’s a diagram of all the agencies involved in this new health care plan. Pay close attention to the giant blue box called the Health Choices Administration and you’ll realize who will be in control of the choices you’ll have under the new plan.

Click here to launch full size

This brings me to my other point using the analogy of children. If you as a parent coddle your child, giving them rewards for no specific reason, do you think your child has a good chance of succeeding? Or do you think it would be better to give your child rewards for doing well in school or helping out around the house? It seems like a no-brainer am I right? So why, in a nation built on the backs of people coming to this country with nothing in their pockets, dreams at their backs and success in their future do we believe coddling the people of this country and treating them like infants is something we should do? Make no mistake, the government is becoming our parent and they are spoiling their children and themselves on our backs.

If ‘we the people’ continue to live off the government tit we WILL become helpless, thoughtless dependants of a bunch of power hungry, corrupt politicians far removed from the countless generations of inventors and dreamers that have come before us. Eventually, we may have no way back to what our Founding Fathers created or maybe we’ll forget about it completely. Read books like ‘The 5000 Year Leap’ that talk about the design of the United States and explain it to people who don’t understand and most of all, pay attention. Seriously, wake up. Stop watching Survivor and get involved.  Make the effort to involve others and talk about your views and most of all HAVE views. HAVE opinions! Stop drinking the tea!

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” Martin Luther King

Now it becomes the challenge of trying to determine what to do about it. How can this be reversed or stopped? I guess that’s for ‘we the people’ to figure out. I have to admit I’m not quite sure yet and haven’t really thought beyond making this post.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

Before I go, I leave you with a present. I’ve been listening to a political commentator named Glenn Beck for just a few months now and I find him a brilliant, sometimes zany, but an all around nice guy who is truly passionate about our country. He has a show on Fox News at 5pm EST and a radio show in New York on 710 AM from 9am – 12pm EST. He recently published a book that I bought on audio due to my long commute to work and I really like it. I think it’s motivating and inspiring and he specifically requests that people who buy his book pass it along to others so they may start to notice some of the things he feels, as I do, are important and potential dangers to this country and our way of life.

To save you time, I’ve added the note from the author here separately so you can decide if you don’t want to download the whole book. You can just click the play button to launch it. Below that is the full download. The book is called Common Sense – The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine.

Glenn Beck – Common Sense
(A note from the author)

Download Glenn Beck – Common Sense (400+mb)
The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine.