Archive for the ‘The Homepage Feature’ Category

Newer Entries »

Can Meg Whitman Attract Enough Democratic Women to Become the First Female Governor of California?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Meg Whitman is a refreshingly unlikely candidate rising up through the California GOP.  There has never been a woman Republican candidate elected to run for Governor in California; but she might just be the right candidate to not only win the primary, but also win the general election in 2010. Whitman has some positive characteristics that are lacking in the other gubernatorial candidates but there is no question she will have an uphill battle.  

The current voter registration is about 44% democratic to 33% republican with another 24% registered voters decline to state/other. The Democratic Party is also 58% female to 42% male and the GOP is 50%/50% male and female. 

According to 2008 exit polls, more than 54% of voters in California were women and 46% were men.  While 42% of voters were self identified Democrats, 30% were self identified Republicans and 28% were self identified Independents.

Moderate democratic women might be the answer to Meg Whitman’s success. Whitman will have a tough challenge of getting those Democratic women to cross party lines – she is a pro-choice and does not have nearly the name recognition as the Democrats in the race.  Whitman also believes in a small government, something that most Californians are not accustomed to.

However Whitman’s positives just might sway enough Democratic women to vote for her.  Meg Whitman has never run for office and she appears to have no baggage. Whitman is the only candidate in the field that has no scandal, no voting record and no previous gaffes that so often fuels the negative campaign ads and press. 

 Whitman also has a seemingly endless supply of money. She gave her campaign $15 million in the summer and has signaled she would spend nearly $150 million more if needed.  Whitman definitely leads the money race of the 5 candidates that are running or rumored to be running by nearly threefold.   In a state as large as California, money will be a critical aspect of the gubernatorial race in order to reach such a broad and expensive media markets.

Her personal story, effectively crafted as how it translates to her political positions, could be very compelling to voters.  She highlights the fact that she was a successful business executive for eBay and wants to fundamentally change the way California is run.  She wants to restore California to its grandeur it once was, but has failed to live up to because of lack of leadership.  Her experience and success as a business executive might appeal to women voters who are working hard to balance their checkbooks while their state goes on an out-of-control spending spree.  One of Whitman’s issues is rebuilding California’s education system from one of the worst in the nation.  With a budget that spends nearly half on education it appears coupled with her proven management skills, she might have just what it takes to accomplish that. On Whitman’s campaign website she states, “Restoring California will not be easy. It will take time to uproot old habits… old ways of thinking… and old ways of doing business. But do it we can, and do it we must, because we all love California too much to let it fail. ”

Whitman has not always fallen in line with the GOP; she opposed all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget propositions, all of which failed in the end.  More Recently She has been getting a lot of flack for her recent comments supporting Van Jones, before Van Jones resigned. This is minor and she will likely move very quickly beyond this however it may help to lead the undecided voter to respect her independence from her party line.

If Meg Whitman keeps her campaign positive and on the message, she might have a real chance of attracting the moderate women of California and breaking the glass ceiling of California’s highest office.  

******

Meghan Hays Goodman is a native of California and previously worked for Former Governor Gray Davis and currently works for a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.  Goodman self identifies as a Democrat.

Posted in The Homepage Feature | No Comments »

Racial Paranoia: A New Low for the Media

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

In a world where deep, cultural insights are a dime a dozen, the left and the mainstream media haven’t left us disappointed. If anything, they have been having a field day in the wake of Joe Wilson’s outburst, offering bits and pieces of revolutionary wisdom whenever anyone would listen. From liberal bloggers to former presidents, to those on the op-ed pages, the theorizing has abounded, despite Wilson saying his outburst was simply “spontaneous.”

The esteemed Maureen Dowd of the New York Times is no exception, nor are the writers for the Huffington Post, or the liberal hosts of MSNBC. Particularly David Shuester, who during a recent segment, wondered if “institutional bigotry” was only present in certain parts of the country.

 “I’ve heard from so many people the fact that Joe Wilson is from South Carolina […] it strikes a lot of people as awfully close to the idea that maybe there was some sort of racist or bigoted element there,” said Shuester. I think the evidence is so overwhelming that there is an effort out there to demonize the first African-American president.”

But unfortunately for her, Ms. Dowd takes the cake when it comes to nonsensical accusations and non-sequitors. In her first column about Joe Wilson’s outburst, Dowd said “…Joe Wilson yelled ‘You lie!’ at a president who didn’t. But fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: ‘You lie, boy!’ […] Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.”

A few days later after Wilson was formally rebuked by the House, Dowd opined, “It was a rare triumph for civility in a country that seems to have lost all sense of it […] the standards of behavior in this new country are terrible.”

And so, in a classic example of pseudo-intelligence in the form of an op-ed, because Ms. Dowd imagined Wilson saying the word “boy,” the Congressman from South Carolina is racist. One could then assume that Ms. Dowd believes that anyone who is opposed to Obama’s policy is a racist.

It seems like ancient history now, but remember back in the 2008 election cycle when the biggest question in the newspapers and primetime news shows was whether or not the country was ready for a black president? Many in the media responded to that question with a resounding “Yes we can embrace, (and maybe even fawn over), an African-American president!”

Yet as Ms. Dowd demonstrates, perhaps it’s not the general American populace that isn’t ready for a black president. Rather, it is the liberal media, who have been consumed with questions about Obama’s race since he became a major contender in 2008. And unfortunately, those initial questions have spawned into all out racism paranoia.

But as is usually the case, this paranoia reveals more about those expressing it, than it does about those accused. By jumping to racism every time conservatives speak out against Obama, the left has only proven that they were never ready to look beyond race. Race should be a non-issue, and to the majority of conservatives, it is. But those on the left won’t let it go.

Not once during the past year has a Republican Congressman or other leader expressed dislike for the president simply because he happens to be African-American. Nor has some massive uprising of bigotry and racial hatred in middle-America been making headlines lately. Pointing to a few signs or even an over-zealous host on Fox News doesn’t prove the right has racist feelings toward Barack Obama.

This racism suspicion is a product of a mainstream media that became so preoccupied with the candidate Barack Obama, that they began to question the integrity of his opposition. Meanwhile, real journalistic pursuits were being ignored, and it took two twenty-something amateurs to uncover the truth about ACORN.

The truth is the fierce outcry over President Obama’s plan for healthcare is simply that: a fierce outcry about nationalized healthcare. Nothing more. Ms. Dowd and her like-minded colleagues are welcome to disagree, but disagreement means nothing without proof. And they have none. Note to those Yankees up at the New York Times and MSNBC: being from South Carolina is not sufficient proof that someone is a racist.

As far as Dowd’s assertion that the “standards of behavior in this new country are terrible,” what is democracy without a little (or a lot) of raucous debate and dissent every now and again, especially when the issue at hand concerns nationalizing a major sector of the economy?

Yet Dowd and friends seem more concerned with civility and acceptable behavior than healthy dissent. And this, coming from someone who accused a U.S. Congressman of being racist based on well, nothing. 

******

Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

Posted in The Homepage Feature | 2 Comments »

Has ACORN Finally Been Cracked?

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

In the last week, a couple of young documentary film amateurs have done more to expose corruption inside ACORN than all of the major networks despite Fox News’ attempts to bring light to the issue. 

While James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles used unconventional tactics to gain some of the video footage of statements by ACORN employees, the facts remain that low to mid-level employees of ACORN in four cities across the country gave similar advice to the same question. O’Keefe and Giles, posing as a pimp and prostitute, asked the ACORN employees how to obtain government assistance for a house so that the two could bring in a dozen young girls from El Salvador to “turn tricks” in the house. In Baltimore, Brooklyn, San Bernadino and the District of Columbia, the responses by ACORN employees had one thing in common — they encouraged the young couple to list their business as anything but prostitution, including “freelancer,” “performing artist” and “massage parlor” so that the two might obtain the necessary tax status.

If someone walked into the same department store in four different cities and attempted to return an item, and the clerks in each store all gave the same or similar responses, it would be considered a business practice of the company. American taxpayers now must ask whether this is a business practice of ACORN and demand to know if ACORN and its affiliates, which have received over $50 million of taxpayer money in the last couple of decades, regularly engages in the practice of encouraging people to defraud the very government from which they get their funding.

Since the release of O’Keefe’s first video from the Baltimore office of ACORN, the left-leaning powerhouse that helped elect Barack Obama is starting to crumble. On Friday, the Census Bureau said, “No thanks, we don’t need your help, ACORN.” On Monday the Senate voted 83-7 to block funding to ACORN. And yesterday, top GOP leaders in the House of Representatives introduced legislation commonly being called the “Defund ACORN Act” to cut off all federal funding to the group. With significant funding coming from the federal government, those are three pretty darn big blows to the group.

Bertha Lewis, spokeswoman for ACORN, issued an official statement today announcing major steps to address the issues brought to light by the recent videos. Even White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that the “conduct on the tapes is inexcusable.” Gibbs is right on this one. It’s too late for ACORN to do the right thing now. American taxpayers must demand to know the truth behind the giant shell of ACORN and insist that the Department of Justice begin investigations into the business practices of this “community organizing” mammoth.

It seems there are only two options — either these employees were trained to assist individuals in defrauding the IRS or they lacked the training to know they should not help their clients commit a crime. Either way, my guess is that Americans will decide it should not take any training at all to know it is wrong to help anyone cheat the government out of taxpayer money to possibly house child prostitutes.

******

Leslie Rutledge is the Former Counsel to Huckabee for President and the Former Deputy Counsel at the NRCC.

Posted in News, The Homepage Feature | 4 Comments »

Flying Under the Radar: Obama is Cutting the Military and Getting Away With It

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Everyone loves a good drama, and Washington has no shortage of them playing out daily. Of course, the best stories seem to happen behind closed doors or just below the radar.

 Here’s one: inside the Beltway, President Obama is proposing to dramatically cut the military and many of its critical, next-generation equipment programs. Yet, most of us haven’t heard about these defense cuts.

Indeed, the policy debates focus on health care, Supreme Court nominations, and cap-and-trade legislation. If implemented, however, sooner or later the American people will learn of these dangerous defense cuts and demand to know why policymakers did not do more when they had the chance.

The chief problem is that many of these decisions would be permanent. Obama has submitted a defense budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2010 that, if implemented, will dramatically reshape America’s military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates likes to say this budget shifts about 10 percent of funds to irregular warfare, where money’s needed most. Like any soap opera plot, that is a deceptive description. While the budget does shift funding, the far more important truth is that it cuts programs.

If Congress ultimately gives the White House what it wants, America’s armed forces will lose capabilities that its leaders and citizens have come to take for granted. Those include freedom of the seas (allowing global trade to stock the shelves at our grocery stores and Wal-Mart); strategic defense (our nuclear umbrella that covers friends and allies and attempts to avoid a nuclear arms races in the Middle East); and air superiority (keeping soldiers and Marines on the ground free from threats overhead).

Yes, maintaining air superiority is costly. But it’s something United States has that no other nation does. If Obama listens to his military commanders, as he promised during the campaign, why is he now ignoring the military’s own requirement for additional F-22s fifth-generation fighter jets? No American soldier or Marine has been killed from the air in over 56 years — why would a president want to compromise that unique record?

As older legacy aircraft retire at accelerated rates, maintaining superiority is not guaranteed. Sufficient numbers of F-22s must be purchased, as the Joint Strike Fighter slowly ramps up production in order to keep this tremendous capability and technological edge for the next four decades.

What’s most astonishing about Obama’s defense cuts is that they’re occurring during a time of war and that this decreased capability will happen in the absence of any careful reevaluation of America’s global mission. The Obama Administration, by its own admission, is recommending fundamental changes for the U.S. military without having conducted a strategic review of defense or foreign policy.

To add another twist, the new President, who has yet to issue any official foreign policy guidance to the Pentagon leaders, is being taken for a ride by his Defense Secretary. In American politics, defense policy is supposed to be subordinate to foreign policy, not the other way around. Yet Secretary Gates says he’s on a quest to reform the Pentagon, and nearly everyone is cheering him on. He’s firing generals, slashing major defense programs and railing against the bureaucracy.

Last year, Gates made clear his national defense strategy flowed from George W. Bush’s national security strategy. Unless President Obama is now adopting Bush administration policies, Gates’ change of heart is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

From the outside, the Pentagon cuts look suspect and haphazard. Congress is voting on these defense bills without all the information, including budget justification details and 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plans. Is this the type of transparency in government we were promised?

The fundamental assumption driving the Obama-Gates strategy itself wavers on whether to prepare for future threats. But defense is not a zero-sum game. In fact, protecting the American people is the primary job of government. But these days observers could be forgiven for thinking “providing for the common defense” isn’t in the Constitution and “protecting entitlement programs” is.

The Obama Administration is cutting defense and seems set to rely on the tools of diplomacy and soft power. Yet these require an atmosphere of global security only American strength can provide. If Members of Congress really want the President to succeed, they will step back, reexamine dated assumptions about the American military, and ask themselves whether they really want American power to continue to decline.

Walking softly in foreign policy is not a new idea nor a bad idea; however, it works only if you also carry a big stick.

******

Mackenzie Eaglen is the Research Fellow for National Security Studies, in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Posted in News, The Homepage Feature | 2 Comments »

The New Populist Tea Party

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Forget lacy parasols, elitism, and expensive chinaware, tea parties just reclaimed the bold, patriotic connotation of revolting Bostonians in war paint. Tea Parties protesting socialistic government erupted across the nation on Saturday afternoon. Thousands pumped signs into the air declaring King Barack, Here’s Your ‘We We We The People’! In a recession that casts millions into unemployment and reduces the working class to pawns for a progressive coup, tea parties rejuvenate democracy by reminding America’s elite that history’s newest strand of populism seeks to re-secure the blessings of liberty.

Politicians over the past eight months left “the people” rolling in the dust while scrambling to pass stimulus bills, climate acts, and universal healthcare despite popular opposition. But politicians sacrificed personal liberty and Constitutional integrity at the door of expansive power long before President Obama’s reign. Indeed, “the people” have become a long since forgotten constituency, and the Tea Parties’ populist streak reminds both the left and the right not of William Jennings Bryan but the Constitution itself.

During an economic recession where the needs of the working class are the most pronounced, Republicans focused rhetorical efforts on cushioning corporate taxes and the insurance industry and Democrats tastelessly mock citizens at town halls. Liberals wander far from personal liberty and dub the Constitution a “living document.”

While conservatives experienced a comeback to Constitutional principles in recent months, the past eight years render the Republican Party as deviant as the Democrats. Neither party convincingly recalls the people they supposedly represent.

In the 2008 election cycle, Sarah Palin spoke to the people in a way Americans could resonate with; she spoke about jobs, spoke about values, and spoke about personal liberties. In true populist fashion, Palin promised relief for the lower classes. Yet rather than calling for government intervention in farming like 1890’s populists, Palin envisioned a break from federal meddling in individual lives like 1780’s founders.

Just like the infamous People’s Party of the nineteenth century, Palin represented a faction of America that repels modern elites. And just like the failed People’s Party, Palin never received the desired national mandate to represent the needs of a distressed group.

But in history lies our hope.

The populists gained political success after their party’s dissolution because the two major parties eventually realized the necessity of populist claims. The Tea Party movement does not claim partisanship or party status, but it is clearly a political platform that cannot be silenced until a major party recognizes its appeal to American principles and halts the tyranny of expansive government.

Tea Party passion is young and contagious, and instead of letting it quietly inspire and then quietly expire, conservatives must facilitate its pandemic spread. The Republican Party should gather the movement’s sentiments under the platform of prudent restraints on government power. The spirit of democracy in these demonstrations is empowering, rambunctiously awakening the Republican Party into a state of action rather than concession. Republican politicians should rile up their constituents, adopt an undignified attitude of excitement, and ride the wave of Constitutionalism into Congress.

Pinstriped suits and slicked-down hair are all well and good on progressive elites, and while conservatives may not benefit from adopting Representative Joe Wilson’s lack of decorum exemplified by his notorious heckling during Obama’s healthcare speech on Wednesday, spirited democracy built off the Tea Parties’ enthusiasm is back in style.

Remarkably, Republicans are shaking it up on the political scene, adopting a populist tone in the healthcare debate, recalling the importance of bills that are read before they are passed, speaking at Tea Parties, and embracing the “blessings of liberty” that they temporarily forgot. Congressional Democrats decry the recent rumbling of the republic as backwards and ignorant, but condescending attitudes toward a democratically motivated people can only endanger Democrats’ chances of reelection.

Moderates balk at masses of people waving “Obama is a socialist” signs, and some Republicans are less than thrilled about the media’s belittling coverage of the Tea Party movement. But how is worrying about the Republican image with a media obsessively declaring the demise of the Right going to help us? As Barry Goldwater reminded those skeptical of democratic protests, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Faced with an authoritarian administration adamantly fixing harnesses around the economy and civil society, conservatives obtain virtue by acknowledging and then legitimizing America’s desire for liberty.

******

Rachel Wagley is an undergraduate at Harvard University where she serves on the Executive Board of the Harvard Republican Club.

Posted in College Corner, News, The Homepage Feature | 3 Comments »

How To Observe 9/11: What You Should Be Doing This Weekend

Friday, September 11th, 2009

9/11, like most memorials forged from tragedy, is both a burden and an opportunity. Across the country this Friday, services will be held and fallen heroes remembered. But honoring their sacrifice doesn’t always mean looking backward. Here are four things you can do for the future.

1. Thank. 9/11 is one day, but each and every day, an American service member is taking life-threatening risks to protect your security. Saying thank you to the military men and women in harm’s way only takes a minute. Visit organization Let’s Say Thanks to pick and personalize a postcard from a wide selection of children’s patriotic sketches. Let’s Say Thanks then prints and delivers the postcard to a U.S. military member somewhere in the world. For other opportunities to serve those who serve you, visit www.supportourtroops.org.

Time: 5 minutes.

2. Donate.  Citizens across the country are working to make 9/11 a national day of service, and you can join them by donating time or dollars.  To find a service project in your community, or gather support for your own great idea, visit www.911dayofservice.org.  If you are among the 20 percent of Americans living in a rural community, consider donating money to your local fire station or emergency response service.  Rural emergency responders are usually volunteers, and departments can struggle to obtain the funding to keep equipment current.  FEMA provides a nation-wide fire station guide with links to local websites and addresses (http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/applications/census/).  Who knows – the life you save may be your own.

Time: 30 minutes or more, and a chance to meet the heroes who live in your neighborhood.

3.  Prepare.  The chance that you will face at least one major cataclysmic event in your life is high: around 91 percent of Americans live in locations that have risk factors for terrorism or natural disasters, such as flooding, wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes.  Dangers like swine flu and other diseases put all Americans in jeopardy, regardless of location.  Yet, many American households are still surprisingly unprepared for the worst.  Folks who take precautions and stock up on water, food, and make a plan are refusing to be victims – and increasing their chances of survival.  Preparedness in many circumstances can save lives, relieve the burden on emergency responders, help you assist others around you in need, and prevent panic.  Web sites like Ready.gov and Really Ready (http://www.fas.org/reallyready/) outline useful planning steps and provide a simple list for your own emergency kit.  Too busy to do it yourself? Visit preparedness.com to buy a ready-made kit.  To better mentally prepare for a disaster, read Amanda Ripley’s hopeful and highly instructive narrative The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – And Why.  Don’t be a victim!

Time: 45 minutes to an afternoon.

4.  Remember.  As most historic events do, 9/11 has slipped from the moorings of personal memory and into our national lore.  Over the din of commission reports and war coverage, it is easy to forget the depth of personal suffering on that crisp fall day.  Watching the television footage from 9/11 is a reminder that the future is never certain, and hindsight is not 20/20.  This Friday, visit the Television Archive website and view the Today Show footage beginning at 8:31 am.  Al Roper gives the weather report, an excited passerby cheers in Times Square, and Matt Lauer is in the middle of an interview when he pauses in confusion and says, “I think we have some footage coming in just now from the World Trade Center.”  And then it is on screen: a tower on fire, and no one knows for sure what has happened.  But at that moment both they and we realize the same thing: life will never be the same.  9/11 is a day to remember both what we lost and what we have.  As St. Augustine said, “this awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning.  History does not end so.  It is the way its chapters open.”

Online: Visit www.archive.org/details/sept_11_tv_archive#September11 to see footage from ABC, CBS, NBC, and others.  Footage includes major network coverage from approximately 8:30 am to noon on 9/11/01.

DVD: Documentaries include 102 Minutes That Changed America, 9/11 – The Filmmakers’ Commemorative Edition, and In Memoriam, 9/11/01 (all available at Amazon.com).

TV: The major news networks usually replay the opening minutes 0f 9/11 on the anniversary.  Check your newspaper for listings.

Time: About an hour.

******
Skyla Freeman is a former writer for President George W. Bush. She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

Posted in The Homepage Feature, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Rewriting Election Law in Massachusetts: An Assault on Democracy

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

This kind of thing is supposed to happen in Venezuela, not in the United States.

The Democratic majority in the Massachusetts legislature is seriously considering rewriting election law for its own political gain.  And it will have national repercussions.

I’d expect this from Hugo Chavez and his lapdop National Assembly, which repealed term limits on the autocratic president and recently altered voting districts that critics charge will ensure future election victories.  It’s appalling that any legislature in the United States would similarly considering altering election laws for the sole purpose of gaining a strategic political advantage.

In Massachusetts, the Legislature is considering a bill to allow Democrat Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim senator to fill the vacancy of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.  This would ensure a Kennedy acolyte blocks any filibusters by maintaining the Senate Democrats’ 60-vote advantage and gives Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a guaranteed ally on national health care reform this fall.

This issue is not whether a gubernatorial appointment is a better option than a special election for filling a Senate vacancy.  It’s not about how long an interim Senator would serve before an election is held.  Both proposals have pros and cons.

As I see it, there are two issues.  First, should the voters of Massachusetts expect, and accept, that whenever it suits the self-interest of the Democrat Party, the Legislature will change election laws?   Second, should the nation tolerate Reid and others pressuring Massachusetts Democrat lawmakers into changing state law so no Senate Democrats can force through an unpopular health care bill?

In both instances, the clear answer is no.

Democrats created this issue for themselves in 2004, when they actually thought John Kerry would win the White House.  At that time, a U.S. Senate vacancy was filled by gubernatorial appointment, so a Kerry victory would hand Republican Mitt Romney a chance to select the next U.S. Senator, in all likelihood a Republican.  It would have been a bitter irony for Massachusetts Democrats to see their favored son become President only to be replaced by a Republican.  (Incidentally, the last Republican U.S. Senator from Massachusetts was Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the Senate by a popular vote, in 1966.)

With Kerry on the verge of victory, then-Senate Minority Leader Reid and Kennedy, Massachusetts’ senior senator, called for immediate action.  Change state law.  Let the voters decide.  Do not let Romney pick a Republican.  Scrap the gubernatorial appointment process. Enact a special election.

And so it was done.

It was a blatantly political move at the time, and a reversal would be blatantly political now.

No majority party, Democrat or Republican, should be allowed to rewrite the law for purely self-serving interests.  As a lawyer and as Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, I find appalling the level of disrespect Democrats are showing the people from whom government derives its power and responsibility.

To change the law for the second time in five years, merely to suit the Democrats’ political whims is an assault on democracy and an affront to the voters of Massachusetts.

******

Jennifer A. Nassour is Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, online at www.massgop.com.

Posted in Exclusives, News, The Homepage Feature | 2 Comments »

American Health Care- Creating Survivors

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

In the spring of 1998, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I am alive today because of my family, my faith and the freedom that the American health care system provides.

I have no doubt that I am a survivor today because I, along with my doctors and my family, was in charge of my own health care decisions.

That would all change under the health care plan pushed by the Democrats. A patient will be viewed less as a person and more as a burden.

Too many men and women in this country know what it feels like to hear that you have cancer.  Sitting in a doctor’s office, and receiving that news, is terrifying.

Now imagine that following the diagnosis you were forced to consult a government bureaucrat for permission to begin the fight of your life.  That’s what the Democrats’ health plan could mean for millions of Americans.

Buried in the House Democrats’ health care legislation are billions of dollars for “Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER).”

If you want to actually read the bill, you can find this provision beginning on page 501 of H.R. 3200, the House Democrats’ health care legislation.

Under the government sponsored CER mandated in the House bill, researchers will compare treatment options for a host of diseases and develop a database to guide doctors’ decisions.

That sounds harmless.  Unfortunately, this could lead to limiting or denying care based on age or disability of patients.

In response, Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee offered multiple amendments to prohibit the rationing of health care.  On those committee votes, the Democrats showed their real intent by voting down every amendment and leaving those provisions in the bill.

This intrusion of a federal bureaucrat into the relationship between a doctor and a patient is not change we can believe in.

Tom Daschle, President Obama’s first choice to lead the health care reform effort, recently published a book on health care reform.

Daschle wrote that the goal of health care reform should be to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they’re driving up costs. He praised Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forego experimental treatments.”

Europeans in search of medical care today are reaping what the Democrats would sow.  Cancer survival rates among women in the United States are higher than any nation in Europe.  The survival rate here is 12% higher than in England.

Under the proposals that Mr. Daschle inspired, and that President Obama and Congressional Democrats are now pushing on the American public, I would have been like too many European women – just another “hopeless diagnosis.”

I am alive today because the treatment I received was on the cutting edge of technology.  Under the Democrats’ plan, my treatments would not have been available to me and my family.

That is the real toll of rationed care.  Less money would be spent on treatments leading to fewer mothers, daughters and sisters who survive their cancer.

There is a better way forward than that laid out by the Democrats.  We can go after the waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare that costs taxpayers billions every year.

We can implement comprehensive tort reform to reduce costly, unnecessary defensive medicine practiced by doctors to protect themselves from overzealous trial attorneys.

We can recognize that much of our health care system treats conditions and diseases after they have been diagnosed. So we need to focus on preventive care and promote healthier lifestyles.

We can make health coverage more affordable by allowing small businesses to pool together across state lines to negotiate lower premiums for their employees.

Republicans want to make smart reforms that would make our health care system even better, and make it more accessible for all of our citizens.  Democrats in Congress simply want more control – over your health care decisions and over one-sixth of the American economy.

This debate should not be about money alone. The real problem with the Democrats’ plan is not that it would cover too few.  It is the fact that millions of Americans would lose the ability to choose their doctor and choose the treatments that best fit them.

The real problem with the Democrats’ plan is that it would endanger too many lives.

I am alive today because of my family, my faith and the American health care system.  The American health care system creates survivors.

I should know.  I am one of them.

******
Jan Larimer is Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Tags:
Posted in News, The Homepage Feature | 17 Comments »

Newer Entries »