The Affordable Healthcare Act (more commonly known in the vernacular as ‘ObamaCare’, although ‘Romneycare’ would be more accurate, but hereafter ‘AHA’) has been the source of great contention over the last two years. This boiled over yesterday when the Supreme Court ruled that it was Constitutional, ruling against the many (mainly republican controlled) states that sought to challenge it.
On Friday, in an OpEd piece in the Macon Telegraph, Republican Freshman Congressman Austin Scott (Georgia, 8th District) typifies the kind of opposition that is based on rhetoric, and not fact. The kind of lying to the voters that causes the problems we have. And the type of ‘Baffle with Bullshit’ that we at the Pirate Party do not accept.
On March 21, 2010, Congress passed President Barack Obama’s 2,700 page health care bill (to offer some perspective, that is two and a half times the number of pages in the Bible that sits on my desk).
For more perspective, we can look at the word count. Including all tables of contents, headers, etc. the AHA comes in at 363,086 words, according to Computational Legal Studies. Without the titles and contents listing, it’s only around 234,812 words.
So how does that compare to the bible? The King James version has 823,156 words.
So, while the AHA does indeed have more pages, it’s because of the way pages are required to be formatted in bills. I’m sure that if you could format bills as the bible does, it would have a lot less pages. After all, the Bible does have 2.2x as many words, which means it has about 5.5x the word density.
As for the whole bible being about helping your fellow man, I’m not even going to touch it, except to say that it’s clear Rep. Scott hasn’t read either the AHA *OR* the Bible recently, judging by this rant (or if he did, didn’t understand either)
Just days earlier, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked that Congress “must pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” Of the contents that were known, much of it was negative. It included provisions that killed jobs, reduced the quality of health care, stripped $500 billion from Medicare, increased 21 taxes, restricted access to doctors and violated the Commerce Clause in the United States Constitution.
“Pass the bill to find out what’s in it” – it’s kinda familiar. Take the USA Patriot Act. This Act, which subverted the US Constitution (notably the 4th Amendment) was introduced on October 23 2001, and signed into law 3 days later. By the time we got the ABILITY to read it, it was already law. Has Rep. Scott opposed that law? He has not. There are many other bills in a similar position (as well as ACTA and TPP).
The Job killing provisions are not true. Politifact ruled such claims false (several times). You can read their decision here, but in short the ‘losses’ are anticipated growths – people getting jobs solely to acquire healthcare coverage. Also a healthier workforce is more productive, and a more productive workforce needs fewer manhours to do the same work.
It's curious statement that requiring medical coverage would lead to reduced care. The only way that could happen is if insurance companies decide to reduce the quality of care. Isn't that a question, or criticism more aptly put at the insurance companies; those unelected individuals who decide what quality of care we receive, and what treatment we can get.
That $500Billion, it’s cuts to planned FUTURE SPENDING. That’s right, it’s a cut on planned spending. On Scott’s campaign site, under Federal Spending, Scott believes the answer is to ‘reduce spending’ – except when it’s not, it seems. This claim, made by others has also been ruled 'mostly false'
21 tax increases, that’s as may be. Healthcare isn’t free. American Medical coverage is mostly run on the for-profit system, which means it’s going to be more expensive (because of the ‘profit’ aspect) and to help pay for these profits, yes, we’ll need taxes.
Restricted Access to Doctors? Sorry, again, not true. Instead of coming between patient and doctor, the bill comes between Patient and Insurance Company.
That it ‘violates the Commerce Clause’ isn’t important, since the Supreme Court ruled that that Clause was not applicable. And as we’ve already noted beforehand, bills that also violate the Constitution (such as the Patriot Act) have not been opposed by Scott.
Now, according to the Supreme Court, the law will stand because it is a tax increase on American citizens. This directly contradicts the president’s repeated pledge that he would not raise any taxes on middle class families and that this bill did not include a tax.
Ah, Scott wants Obama to abide by his pledges? So he’s in favor of closing Guantanamo? Or is he actively working against Obama’s pledges and then claiming it’s Obamas fault for not abiding by it? Sounds a bit of a lowlife position, really.
The House Ways & Means Committee estimates that the total tax increase could exceed $800 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, 75 percent of this tax increase falls on middle class Americans.
What the CBO+JCT said was that 75% of the tax increase falls on those making less than $250,000/year. That’s 97% of America. Of course, we could increase that tax burden on the top 3% but I believe Rep. Scott is against that. So, not sure what he’s complaining about really. Except to do so for the sake of it, and spin another half-truth, so he can keep his $184,000/year job, with his very nice government healthcare package.
I am disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the health care law. The reality remains that this law is bad policy. This law will increase your taxes, infringe on your doctor-patient relationship and radically alter the way a company or employer conducts business.
His disappointment is that a Court whose sole function is to determine the Constitutionality of laws, found them to be so? That sounds a lot like he would rather they had failed to do their appointed job, and instead act like an ‘activist judge’, who ‘legislates from the bench’. Alternatively, it seems that Rep. Scott needs to take (and this time PASS) a civics class, explaining what the SCOTUS does.
Despite the court’s ruling, my personal belief is that it absolutely violates the limits that the Founders placed on the federal government’s power over American citizens. Fortunately, the Founders gave the American people the ultimate decision-making ability in their right to vote.
Thankfully, Rep. Scott is not a judge. Judging on this statement, it seems that Rep. Scott really doesn’t understand the ‘checks and balances’ setup of the Federal Government. His personal belief is irrelevant. Instead of whining like a sore loser that some of your major contributors might have their profit margins reduced, instead he should be rejoicing that the PEOPLE HE IS SWORN TO REPRESENT have a better chance for healthcare now, and are less likely to face medical bankrupsy, or die from easily preventable conditions because the death panels at the insurance company found the person unprofitable.
This week, nine justices voted on this law. In less than five months, Americans will have the opportunity to render their vote. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans are not in favor of the president’s health care law -- and that was before they found out about the tax increase. Make sure your voice is heard in the November elections.
Polls have shown that they’re not in favor of the law, correct. Polls have also shown that Americans ARE in favor of what the law does, when it is not associated with ‘Obamacare’. What can we infer from that? That the Billions spent on marketing this issue by the healthcare lobbies, and the republican leaning groups have had an effect.
Of course, we all know that the VAST majority of Americans was substantial healthcare reform, which does NOT include ‘pay until you can’t bleed any more, then double the bill’ as favored by Rep Scott and others (under the term ‘free market solutions’)
And if he’s so CONCERNED about taxes, then of course he can cut away, but howare we possibly going to pay for Republican spending, like the TSA, or the gargantuan cost of Republican wars, or the domestic spying by the government on our citizens. These things have to be paid for, and that means taxes. Cut out these unncecesary costs, then sure you can reduce revenues. Cutting your income without cutting your costs is a path to financial ruin though, but that does seem to be a Republican trait – Economic ignorance.
I recognize that Americans are hurting and this ill-advised and destructive experiment is preventing our economy from recovering. One of my first acts as the representative for the 8th District of Georgia was to co-sponsor and vote in favor of HR 2, which fully repealed the president’s health care law. I will continue to work with my colleagues to fully repeal this law and replace it with solutions that will actually put individuals in charge of their health care -- not Washington.
One of his first acts was not to see what issues affected people, it was to work on a bill they knew wouldn’t be passed, as a tantrum and to show his political beliefs. No asking his constituents, apparently if you supported Scott for ANY reason (or at least didn't support Jim Marshall) then you automatically want to be roughly violated in the bank balance by the Health Industry.
Sounds almost like an admission that he violated his oath.
His individuals in charge plan? That's certainly one way to describe a plan where you as the individual decide which of the extremely expensive medical procedures or tests you're going to have done, and hope you get both a diagnosis and cure before you run out of credit. It's a great 'free market' solution, but not a plan one would call particularly 'Christian', or one favorable to the people he's supposed to be representing.
And while we're on the subject of individuals in charge of health care, I guess that would also mean contraceptives, and abortions? Or is his claim another lie he hopes those in middle Georgia are too stupid to notice?
Together, we must move forward and replace the president’s health care law with common sense, market-based solutions that reduce costs, strengthen our economy, improve our health care and protect our individual rights and constitutional freedoms.
Ok, Common sense. Single Payer. Why is that common sense? Because it works EVERYWHERE ELSE. Many countries even have a public-private system, such as the UK.
Republican Austin Scott represents Georgia’s 8th Congressional District.
Austin Scott represents his party, represent fears, and represents lies. Based on this flawed and lie-filled piece, I can’t think of anyone in this district who would consider themselves ‘represented’ by Scott, because they’re decent, hard working people, able to tell the truth in public (or at least feel shame at peddling outright lies.
This is why we need change. This is a major reason why we need the Pirate Party; a party that works on facts, and is not about blind greed, or partisan demagoguery. This is why we, the Pirate Party of Georgia, need your support.
This piece by K`Tetch was originally posted on the Pirate Party of Georgia website
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