Campaign Blog
We Just Don’t Want National Healthcare
Bart Stupak doesn’t get it. We don’t want national healthcare. We don’t want the government, which has bankrupted Social Security, the Post Office, Medicare, etc, to control another 17 percent of our economy. We don’t want government meddling in our lives in such an intimate fashion. His recent party-line piece in the Wall Street Journal clearly describes his disconnect–as well as his disingenuous expression of concern for his constituents.
Read his commentary here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016894261465742.html
First of all, it seems funny that Mr. Stupak is admonishing the legislature to talk to their constituents. He was most reluctant to talk about healthcare for most of last year. Pete Hoekstra, representative from a neighboring district, actually came to town to fill the void. Letters to Mr. Stupak’s office yield perfunctory form responses; phone calls do the same. I’m thinking about the pot and the kettle.
Why does he think we’re interested in having government “create jobs?” Government is the reason we have so few. If the hysterically burdensome regulation of private interests would abate, we’d have more jobs than we could fill. People are creative. People are innovative. People want to succeed and in a truly free market economy, they would. Innovative people make jobs for others and produce goods and services. The government
produces nothing.
Also, why is it necessary for people living in “Michigan, New York or Nebraska,” to pay the same insurance premiums? We don’t pay the same for anything else. I choose to live in Michigan’s upper peninsula where my local store sells bread for four dollars a loaf. I can’t get reliable internet and I’m 100 miles from the closest Wal-mart. I chose this. Different locations have different characteristics. People are subject to different diseases and injuries, in differing locations, to a different extent. That’s how life is. Health care costs differ according to location and for a thousand other reasons.
Mr. Stupak says we are not expected to understand and support a bill nearly 3,000 pages long. Is this huge document unique? Many, many bills are passed with nefarious bits of this and that buried in their pages. As one much-quoted legislator pointed out, it would require a staff of attorneys to make heads or tails of most proposed legislation. And the healthcare bill is especially egregious. Ms. Pelosi, who votes with Mr. Stupak 96 percent of the time, said it is “reasonable” to jail those who don’t comply with the healthcare bill requirements. And the IRS is to monitor? We really don’t want that.
Even Mr. Stupak’s much-touted support of the Hyde Amendment is disingenuous. In Escanaba last month, a citizen asked why it’s wrong to publically-fund abortion. What a question! He, if he’s the pro-life marauder they claim, could have said, “Some people call abortion murder. It is wrong to make them pay for another’s murders.” Instead, he said, “the majority of the members oppose it.” Give me a break! Mr. Stupak’s insipid support of pro-life interests has often been recorded: he says, “It’s the law. It’s the Hyde amendment. I’m only sticking up for current law.” But, when questioned about the current law which only approves publically-funded abortion in the cases of rape, incest or impending death of the mother, Mr. Stupak said he would approve abortion in cases where the child is expected to be deformed. He didn’t say that before; he said he was supporting current law! Not only is he not pro-life, he is not honest about the reasons he claims to be. Where is Right to Life in all of this? They’ve repeatedly endorsed Mr. Stupak. Last election year he scored 24 percent LOWER than his Republican opponent on the Right to Life candidate questionnaire, yet he got the endorsement.
One thing Mr. Stupak is right about. He’s right to be concerned about an “electoral tsunami.” Massachusetts elected a Republican to the Senate. I can’t say I’m particularly fond of some of the new senator’s positions, but he proved one thing. It can be done.
Tags: Bart Stupak
I completely agree. Stupak is getting praise as a great champion of the Right to Life, and he DOES NOT DESERVE IT. I wrote about his interview on the Frank Beckmann show and he stated,
Well ya know, the far left is the one’s who want health care, they never would have received health care if it wasn’t for Bart Stupak and the Stupak Amendment.
A pity it took “being disappointed” before folks started taking a closer look at Mr. Stupak’s duplicity. He sure knows how to take maximum advantage of a situation. I wondered how he would manage to parley this most important “principle into political coinage. Thank you, Linda, for consistently reminding us not to expect him to stand for anything truly more significant than what can be managed as a “detail” in an executive directive. What the President “gives”, he can take away—in a flash. I expect more from my representative.