Lawyers say: when you have the facts, argue the facts; when you have the law, argue the law; when you have neither, throw food. On health care, they’re throwing food. By calling us “misinformed,” “angry,” “unruly,” and my personal favorite, “a mob,” Democrats are trying to change the subject. Don’t let them. Continue to focus on their failed ideas and their misery-making health care legislation. Here are more questions to ask your legislators at town hall meetings.

1. Free markets work because of the thinking, research and decisions of thousands of your fellow citizens. You said famously, or infamously, “I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.” Are you saying your judgment is superior to the individual and collective wisdom of your district?

2. The House health care bill creates a “Health Choices Commissioner” who will decide what private insurance companies must cover and what services they must offer. The commissioner will have the power to audit and fine anyone, employer or insurer. The audit target will be forced to pay for the cost of the audit. There is no trial or appeal. How will this encourage competition between private insurers and get costs down?

3. A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with the health care they receive. Seventy percent of the uninsured report being satisfied or very satisfied with their health care. Given these numbers, why would you support such a radical overhaul of American health care?

4. In 1948, the UK began single-payer health care. The sytem’s founder, Aneurin Beven, said, “We now have the moral leadership of the world.” The BBC reports that the 2009 wait time for hip replacement is 11 months, cataract surgery is 8 months, knee replacement is 12 months, slipped disks and hernia surgery are 5 months. Since you favor single-payer, do you consider these waits for care to be “moral?”

5. Most American doctors say CT and MRI scans are the most important technical leap in patient care. The US has 34 CT scanners per million Americans; Canada has only 12 and Britain has 8. The US has 27 MRI machines per million people, compared to only 8 in Canada and Britain. Why should we accept the substandard level of care offered in counties with government-run heath care?

6. Canada has a single-payer health care system. The Vancouver Sun reported that 6,250 surgeries will be cancelled in Vancouver to close a budget shortfall of 200 million dollars. If this is how a single-payer system operates in a country of 33 million people, wouldn’t it be worse in a country of 300 million? Why would you support such a system here?

7. The UK has a population of about 59 million. Their health care bureaucracy, the National Health Service, employs 1.5 million Britons. In our country, with a population of 300 million, that works out to 7.5 million new Federal employees. Given our current enormous budget deficits, how can you justify a huge increase in the size of the Federal government?

8. Medical malpractice suits drive up the cost of health care. One study (Towers Perrin 2001) found that the tort liability system costs each US citizen $721 per year. The health care “reform” bills do nothing to reduce this cost. Why are you not insisting that this be addressed?

9. The top 5 US hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. In the past 34 years, Americans have won 29 Nobel prizes for medicine. Are you concerned in the least that if America adopts a single-payer system, we will lose our technological edge in health care, costing American lives?

10. The stimulus bill, which you voted for, created the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. This is modeled after Britain’s National Institute of Clinical Effectiveness, or NICE. In 2006 NICE denied the use of a drug to prevent macular degeneration until patients went blind in one eye. Why should we think this will never happen here?

Democrats have been beaten up, but they are not giving up their dream of government-controlled health care. They will roll out a new marketing strategy and 150 million dollars of advertising to back it up. Please consider giving to these organizations running health care ads to counter the Democrat ad blitz:
www.joinpatients.com
www.conservativesforpatientsrights.org

Single payer healthcare is the most liberal version of healthcare reform being espoused. Barak Obama is on record wanting to go there, but knowing he can’t get it there yet. President Obama’s version of the healthcare document is a road to socializing medicine. It’s a first, but necessary step.

What has any of this to do with Congressman Massa? Well he’s a supporter of H.R. 676,which is a far more liberal healthcare bill. This is for single payer healthcare, which gets us to socialized medicine immediately. We shouldn’t be surprised he campaigned even out in California in favor of socialized medicine. Good thing someone shot video huh?!

Also, while campaigning for four years he was for socialized medicine too. He was interviewed by an organization that supported Democrats that supported single payer healthcare. In that interview he says in his own words, “I support the idea of a single-payer health care system in which the doctor-patient relationship remains personal and private, but costs and payments are centrally managed. We can reduce overhead and operational costs. Such a plan would encourage preventive health care and dramatically simplify paperwork and reimbursement processes.”

This statement not only shows his views, but is plagued with wrong notions. The idea that big brother writing the checks would keep the doctor-patient relationship in tact is certainly in question. But a larger violation of commonsense is that the single payer system wouldn’t by necessity dramatically simply paperwork or encourage preventative care.

If all this isn’t enough, The Democratic National Committee (DNC) put out an ad praising Massa for his job in healthcare reform. So we have a constant position held before the election and after the election. When he got a formidable challenger, Tom Reed, and the popularity of his idea was in question he put out press releases like this one to the Star-Gazette. He said at various Townhall meetings that he was going to vote against Obama’s bill.

However, it’s important that everyone know why: Obama’s bill is not socialized enough. It doesn’t go far enough. He said it during the campaign and after the campaign and even in front of others. There are ideas out there that will make a difference. Ones that put the decision making and power back in the hands of the people. However, people like Congressman Massa believe that government can do better. Haven’t they done a great job with Social Security and Medicare?

After writing this, another video sprung up from the Washington Times. A startling video where he declared, “I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.” Don’t take my word for it, see it for yourself.

I must first say I’m a little biased on immigration, because I’ve worked for an organization that has educated Americans on the topic and mobilized them to make a difference: NumbersUSA. And my job wouldn’t be complete without urging you as a private citizen to go and take a look. However, as Republicans we all have slightly different feelings about immigration.

We are a nation of laws and whatever you think on the topic of immigration most people agree that breaking the laws are bad. It’s already against the law to be an illegal immigrant. The name actually says it all. It’s already against the law to hire illegal immigrants, actually a federal crime.

So that’s what makes Congressman Massa’s response to me outrageous. I have written several faxes to my Representative on immigration issues. I have received letters several times with wording almost exactly the same. I have not responded hoping that he really didn’t feel this way. However, after receiving at least three letters myself and others I know who have received similar letters receiving the exact same wording I must call him out on this.

He mentions that he is fighting for a solution to the problem that will address the national security issues “while at the same time protecting those who came to this country legally and those who are undocumented but employed by businesses that depend on their contributions.“

Congressman Massa with these phrases is declaring his support of illegal immigration. He’s also saying that he supports businesses that break the law by hiring them. With the economy the way it is and millions of Americans out of work, the unemployed don’t need this kind of help from Congressman Massa.

Jane Sturm asked President Obama if her then 100-year-old mother would have received a pacemaker under Obamacare. Jane’s mom is still going strong at 105. Jane asked the President, “Is there consideration given for a certain spirit?” The President’s chilling response (available on YouTube) was, “I don’t think we can make judgments based on people’s spirit…maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain killer.” Obama gave Jane’s mom less respect than the family dog. If this is what we can expect from health care reform, maybe we’d better attend Town Hall Meetings and ask questions. Here are some questions to ask your legislators:

1. Medicare is 38 trillion dollars in debt, and fraud is rampant. Amtrak is in constant need of subsidies. Health care on Indian reservations is abysmal. Given this woeful history, how can you justify government involvement in the health care of every American?

2. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of this bill ranges from 1
to 1.6 trillion dollars. Won’t the tax increases needed to fund this program damage the already ailing economy? If taxes aren’t raised and money must be printed, won’t this add to already existing inflation pressures?

3. I understand that the President, Congress, and all other Federal employees are exempted from health care reform. If this is such a great plan, why don’t you and your family sign up?

4. President Obama promises that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Yet on page 16 and 17 in the House bill, if anything changes in your copayment or deductible (which happens every year,) you must move into an “approved” plan or the government option. In other words, you CAN’T keep it. How will this help private insurance to compete?

5. The House health care reform bill (HR3200) cuts Medicare by 500 billion dollars to pay for health care reform. The cost of insuring the uninsured is far less than that. Plus, the uninsured are less than 16% of the population. Why change the whole system for 16%? Why not give the uninsured vouchers to buy health insurance? Will cuts in Medicare result in denied care for our seniors?

6. David Blumenthal, Obama’s National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, said doctors will have to take advantage of “embedded clinical decison support.” This is fancy language for telling your doctor how to treat you. Do you support having the government in the examining room with patients, “guiding” treatment?

7. Blumenthal also said (referring to Hillary Clinton’s failed effort at reform) that speed is essential to passing health care reform. Do you agree with that?

8. Blumenthal said it was “debatable” that the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. Do you agree with Dr. Blumenthal? Do you think it is advisable for Americans to wait for care? Is this enough for you to call on President Obama to fire Dr. Blumenthal?

9. The Hippocratic Oath is the pledge doctors take to do all in their power to help patients. Obama appointee Ezekiel Emanuel want to change that ancient and sacred creed to “move toward more socially sustainable, cost-effective care.” Wouldn’t this be a gross interference in the doctor-patient relationship? Will you call for President Obama to fire Ezekiel Emanuel?

10. As a followup, Dr. Emanual complained that “hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy, comfort and auxiliary services than do hospital rooms in most other countries.” Do you agree that this is a problem? Do you want sick Americans to have less comfortable hospital rooms?

Democrats have long dreamed of government-run health care. They have all the votes they need. The only thing standing between them and achieving total control over our lives is public opinion. Get involved. Read, talk to your friends and neighbors, write and e-mail your legislators to stop passage of the government option.

“Ten more questions” to follow soon.

As health-care reform winds its way through Congress, let’s take a look back and a look ahead.

The most recent attempt at “reform” was Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors. They said seniors couldn’t afford health care, so we needed a government program. Now the Medicare trustees say the program is 38 trillion dollars in debt. Private insurance for seniors has largely disappeared.

Senator Kennedy’s “Affordable Health Choices Act” will limit your choice of health-care plans and restrict your access to specialists. You will be required to pay as much as 10% of your income to purchase health insurance. You must prove you have “approved” health-insurance or be fined. Your health care will be coordinated by a primary care physician. Doctors will be pressured to provide “cost effective” care or be penalized. This bill will also create a “government option”, health insurance provided by the government. What if you have private insurance and want to keep it? No details are offered yet, but the HHS secretary will be authorized to limit insurance company profits, thus killing them off.

How are private companies going to compete with a government that can undersell them, fund itself through taxation and print money? Imagine a baseball league where the chosen team starts 2 runs ahead and hand-picks the umpires. This is competition the Obama-Massa way, a game rigged to swiftly get us to a Canadian-Style (government) system.

Abortion rights activists have long said women can’t be told what to do with their bodies, that medical decisions are between women and their doctors. If this “reform” passes, bureaucrats will be in your doctor’s office, standing between you and your doctor. In fact, the components of rationing and government control of health care are already in law, thanks to Obama’s “stimulus” bill and Massa’s vote. Hidden in the Stimulus package was the mandatory computerization of our medical records, all to be turned over to the government. The stimulus also created a government health-care rationing board.

In all their talk of reform, Obama-Massa never say freedom. It’s not in their vocabulary. Other words come with alarming ease, such as: mandate, regulate, penalize and of course tax.

Our health-care problems can be solved with fundamentally American words and the ideals they represent: individual, the respect for the uniqueness of each of us; freedom, which allows us control over our bodies and lives.

Change the tax code to allow individuals and families to deduct the cost of insurance. Allow the purchase of insurance across state lines. Expand Health Savings Accounts. This will lead to savings and increased competition between the 1300 insurance companies already vying for our business.

Passage of a “government option” is a deliberate step toward a single-payer system like Canada’s. Breast cancer survivors in Quebec must wait 60 days to begin post-op radiation therapy. Several brave women are suing for their lives the government sworn to protect them.

Government health care is the road to rationing and denial of care; reject it. Instead, embrace expanding markets and most importantly, personal choice.

Health care reform is important to every American. With the Democrats firmly in control of the Senate, House and White house, the future of our health and quality of life rests with them. Decisions they make may decide who lives, who dies, who gets health care and who does not. The mechanisms for rationing health are already in law, passed in the stimulus bill.

The worry is the health care bill will be rushed through, like the stimulus. Congressman Eric Massa said he had to “pull an all-nighter” to read the bill before the scheduled vote. A bill this complex and expensive shouldn’t have been rushed. This was a failure of presidential and congressional leadership. The result was a spending and deficit exploding orgy. The same politically motivated hustle will not do when it comes to health care. Our lives and the lives of our loved ones are at stake.

Deliberation, care and thoughtfulness should accompany every step of the process. We must have a full and open debate. There is no need to rush such an important issue. Contact your local representatives. Tell them to exercise great care. We are all worth it.

Run! Here comes health care reform Obama-Massa style. This is not really reform, it’s a take over. The statists differ on how to accomplish this. Eric Massa wants a single-payer system while Obama says he wants the government to compete with private insurance.

“Reform” is already well under way. Obama slipped government control of health care into the stimulus bill with the creation of two new bureaucracies, the Federal Coordinating Council for
Comparative Effectiveness Research and the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. He mandated the computerization of our medical records by 2014. This will enable bureaucrats to “guide” your doctors decisions about treatments that are “cost effective”. Penalties may be imposed on physicians who refuse to comply. David Blumenthal, appointed by President Obama to oversee this effort said, “Government controls on health care spending are associated with longer waits for elective procedures and reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices”. But wait, there’s more “reform”. Another Obama appointee, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, wants to remake the Hippocratic oath. This is the oath doctors take to,”keep the good of the patient as the highest priority”. Dr. Emanuel said medical students should be trained ” to move to more socially sustainable, cost effective care”. According to Emanual, medical comforts drive up costs: “Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy, comfort and auxiliary services than do hospital rooms in most other countries”.

The Federal Coordinating Council is modeled after Great Briton’s National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE). They approve or reject treatments on the basis of age and cost effectiveness. NICE denied use of Temodar, an oral medication for brain tumors. They said while it will help people live longer, it wasn’t cost effective. Senator Ted Kennedy, long a champion of single payer health care, takes Temodar. He would be denied Temodar in a system he would create for the rest of us.

The implementation of government health care will forever alter the relationship of doctor to patient and people to government. It will destroy our individuality, freedom and faith that our doctor works for us, and is not an agent of the state. Free people do not stand in line to wait for care, as supplicants to an all powerful government. This is an abomination of our founding principles. It is a triumph of Big Brother over Washington, Jefferson, Madison and all they stood for, and fought for.

Obama’s proposal and Massa’s vote will result in bureaucrats deciding the worth and value of each of us. Politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys are wholly inadequate to this task. It is a decision far above the pay grade of such men. It is cruelty to lie to citizens, telling them they will have all the health care they will need, when the mechanism for rationing is already in place. Americans will suffer at the hands of a government sworn to protect them.

The good news is that our president’s new feel good foreign diplomacy appears to be working. The bad news is that the logical result of this policy shift is that Americans throughout the world are at increased risk of harm from unfriendly governments.

Speaking from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad Obama took time out from is busy schedule of handshakes and smiles with such pillars of democracy, capitalism, and individual rights as Hugo Chavez, Daniel Noriega, and Raul Castro to comment on this new direction for US foreign policy.

“The whole notion was that if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness,” Obama said, recalling his race for the White House and challenging his critics today.
“The American people didn’t buy it,” Obama said. “And there’s a good reason the American people didn’t buy it — because it doesn’t make sense.”

Unfortunately, at least one of the American people is buying it (or rather, paying for it) as this policy has lead to the silencing of her voice and the loss of her freedom. On April 18th it was reported that American journalist Roxana Saberi was convicted of espionage and spying for the United States government. Ms. Saberi was raised by her Iranian born father and Japanese born mother in North Dakota. She is dual US-Iranian citizen who has been living in Iran for the past six years while working as a freelance journalist for media outlets such as NPR and the BBC. Videos and pictures of her working in the public eye are readily available on the internet. Ms. Saberi was coerced into a confession and convicted in a mock trial behind closed doors. Both Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have stated that she is in no way connected with the US government, and no evidence other than the coerced confession, has been offered by the Iranians.

Ms. Saberi is an attractive woman and a western educated journalist. This is a heretical combination of traits in the eyes of Iran’s ruling mullahs. Therefore despite being a citizen of Iran, she is a convenient and useful tool for them to flex power on the world stage in the face of the new US President.

Let’s look at the sequence of events:
January 2009: Bush leaves office, Obama enters, Roxana Saberi is arrested in Iran for the heinous crime of buying a bottle of wine and held for working as a journalist without proper paperwork.
March 2009: Obama makes conciliatory speeches aimed at Iran
April 2009: Saberi is convicted of espionage and spying and sentenced to eight years in prison

My opinion is that Ms. Saberi very likely would not have been arrested, detained for 4 months, and farcically convicted of espionage and spying with the Bush Administration in the White House. Oppressive regimes like Iran, North Korea, and yes, Obama’s new friends in Latin America, understand primarily one kind of diplomacy. And that is power. Quite simply the potential punishment a Bush Administration was willing to deliver deters the persecution of American’s around the world by governments hostile to our way of life. They view Obama’s speeches and posturing as obvious signs of weakness, and this allow the mullahs to test how far they can go without reappraisal. It will be interesting to see what direction they go next in testing the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth who openly disparages our right to use that power for the betterment of humanity, or even for our own citizen’s protection.

I cannot help but think back and compare this situation to the days when the oppressive thugs who now rule Iran came to power in 1979 and held dozens of Americans hostage for more than a year. It was not a coincidence that the day the hostages were released was the day another weak Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, left office and was replaced by a strong Republican in Ronald Reagan. Even in their nascent days as dictators the mullahs knew the potential of US power wielded by someone willing to use it and reacted appropriately in their own self interest by releasing the hostages.

But back to Ms. Saberi. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have made milquetoast statements asking for good treatment and release. There is nary the trace of the threat of any negative repercussions to the abductors of one of our citizens. But perhaps our President is hoping Ms. Saberi will be saved by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (One cannot help but think Mr. Ahmadinejad is most desirable diplomatic friend for President Obama in the whole world. Imagine the joy he feels thinking of the photographs that would appear on front pages around the world as he shakes hands, smiles, and jokes with Iran’s president in the ultimate rebuke of the Bush administration’s policy of belief and support for American-style free and democratic society.)

Mr. Ahmadinejad has stated that he is urging the prosecutor in the case that Ms. Saberi be given the right to defend herself in court on all appeals. Apparently rights for citizens in court in Iran are dependent on Presidential politics as opposed to written laws. But Ms. Saberi may not want to book her flight back to Fargo just yet as Mr. Ahmadinejed may not be able to follow-up very soon. This week he is giving the keynote speech at the UN conference on racism where he will expound on the evils of US and Israeli Zionism as the world’s most oppressive form of racism.

It’s too bad President Obama decided to continue a Bush administration policy and avoid attending this conference. Given his oratorical capabilities, it would have been a great opportunity for him to follow the holocaust denying Ahmadinejed by expounding on how the US moved from human slavery to a freely elected minority President over a 143 year period by respecting the dignity of the individual and upholding those rights through our laws and court systems. He could have described the courage and fortitude it took over the generations since the Civil War ended, and the many rewards we’ve reaped. But it might have lead to an unpleasant situation where handshakes and smiles were not possible. Confrontation might even have actually occurred, so perhaps it’s best he stayed away.

The second part of the Tax Day Teaparty. This shows the last two speakers we had. Frank Acomb has a radio show on WENY radio called Frankly Speaking that you can hear locally from 6-9am. Bill Nojay is a business attorney and a radio talk show host. Bill’s radio show the Bill Nojay show is broadcast throughout the area.

Robert Lindquist from http://www.blubari.com from Canandaigua area volunteered to drive down and shoot video for our event. We thank him and his wife for making the trip all the way to Corning for our event. This video was definitely impossible without his help.

We has at least 1000 people there. We circulated a petition to help bring change to the United States and to New York. The business climate is in need of action. The changes are possible, but it will take us making our views known. We will continue a discussion on this blog helping to explain what these are and how they will help. If you want to help this petition we are going to keep the petition going until May 15th. Download the petition detail as well as a blank sheet. And go to your friends and neighbors. Let’s show them how we feel about the spending and the taxes and let’s bring change. The address to mail it in is on the documents.