Manzullo: Democrat Health Care Plan Would Cost Millions More U.S. Jobs, Reduce Quality of Health Care in America

July 29, 2009
Congressman Manzullo supports alternatives that lower costs, cover more Americans

On Tuesday, Congressman Don Manzullo said he opposes the Democrat health care bill because it will surge taxes on America’s small businesses – stifling their ability to create jobs at a time America desperately needs jobs – while forcing the government between patients and their doctors and putting the private health care coverage of 114 million Americans at risk.

Instead, Manzullo supports alternative health care reforms that would reduce the costs of health care in America and make coverage more available to the 46 million uninsured. The former Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Manzullo for years has been a champion of efforts to make health care more affordable and accessible for America’s small employers and their employees, who account for more than 56 percent of our nation’s uninsured. In addition, Manzullo believes Congress should prohibit denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions and allow children to stay on their parents’ health care plans until they are 25 years old or emancipated (this woul d reduce the uninsured by 7 million).

“America’s health care system is struggling and is in need of reform to reduce costs and increase coverage to the uninsured. But the Democrat health care bill would do more harm than good, surging costs on the job creators of our economy, forcing the government between patients and their doctors, and putting the private health care coverage of 114 million Americans at risk,” Manzullo said. “The reforms I support would reduce the costs of health care in America, make the system more accessible to the 46 million uninsured, and preserve the strong doctor-patient relationship to ensure health care decisions are not made by Washington bureaucrats.”

By including a government-managed program, the Democrat plan (H.R. 3200) would:

• Risk the private health care coverage of 114 million Americans as employers would reconsider offering the benefit in lieu of government-provided coverage, according to the Lewin Group.
• Hike taxes more than $800 billion on struggling employers who can’t afford to offer insurance to their employees and on the uninsured w ho don’t purchase health insurance for themselves (the bill makes health care coverage mandatory for all Americans and actually slaps a 2.5 percent income tax surcharge on the uninsured who don’t purchase health insurance.)
• Surge government spending another $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. This comes on top of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and $780 billion stimulus plan that will take Americans generations to re-pay.
• Put another 4.7 million Americans out of work as struggling employers go out of business trying to comply with the new costly mandate that makes them non-competitive in the global marketplace.
• Establish new European-style government health bureaucracies to ration health care services. The bill creates a new government board, the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee,” that would empower=2 0federal bureaucrats to consider cost as factor when making coverage decisions.

Instead, Manzullo supports several reform initiatives that would make health care coverage more affordable and more accessible to Americans, including:

• Reforming our out-of-control medical liability system – Medical malpractice insurance continues to surge, skyrocketing health care costs and forcing doctors and other medical professionals to practice “defensive medicine,” which entails ordering costly and often unnecessary tests to cover all the bases from lawsuits. Manzullo is a cosponsor of the HEALTH Act (H.R. 1086) that would fully compensate victims for medical injuries but place reasonable caps on punitive and non-economic damages that often inflate the awards and contribute to out-of-control liability and health care costs.
• Creating refundable tax credits to help low-income Americans purchase health insurance – Low-income children are already covered through the federal SCHIP program, and Manzullo supports refundable tax credits to help low-income adults purchase health insurance.
• Allowing the creation of Association Health Plans -- AHPs would allow small businesses to pool together thr ough national associations to give them the same purchasing power as large companies and labor unions to buy affordable health insurance for themselves and their employees. Manzullo is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan SHOP Act (H.R. 2360) to accomplish this goal.
• Expanding tax-free availability to Health Savings Accounts -- HSAs20allow small business owners to offer more affordable high-deductible health insurance plans to their employees and make tax-deductible contributions to employee savings accounts to allow their employees to build equity and assume personal control of their health care needs. Congress should increase the tax deductibility for these insurance plans.
• Preserving high-quality health care through America’s community health clinics – Manzullo supports continued funding of our community health clinic system, which provides high-quality health care to America’s low-income families. Manzullo has been a strong supporter of Rockford’s Crusader Clinic, which serves more than 40,000 needy patients in northern Illinois each year.
• Expanding small business tax deductions for health care expenses – Corporations currently are able to purchase health care coverage for their employees before they pay their payroll taxes. Self-empl oyed small business owners – one of the toughest group of individuals to insure – should have the same opportunity, but do not. Manzullo is a cosponsor of the Equity for Our Nation’s Self-Employed Act (H.R. 1470) to allow the self-employed to purchase health care insurance prior to paying their Social Security and Medicare taxes. This would effectively reduce their health care costs20immediately by more than 15 percent.

For more information about Congressman Don Manzullo, please visit www.manzullo.org.

Springfield tax fight energizes state GOP

by Steve Huntley via the Chicago Sun-Times
July 28, 2009

For years the conventional wisdom has been it didn't make much difference which party held power in Springfield because Illinois Democrats and Republicans pretty much operated alike, in tandem and to their mutual benefit. So a lot of people, myself included, were surprised Republicans held firm and didn't go along with Gov. Pat Quinn's demand for a 50 percent increase in the state income tax.

I fully expected moderate Republicans at some point would cave in to pressure from the governor, state-funded interest groups, political calculations based on Illinois' status as a blue state, and House Speaker Michael Madigan's ploy to blame the GOP for any severe budget cuts hitting human service agencies.

But Republicans stood their ground. And, with big Democratic majorities in both houses, voters didn't buy the snake oil that the GOP was responsible for fiscal chaos in Springfield. "For the first time in this state, people are starting to see a clear distinction between Republicans and Democrats," asserted House Minority Leader Tom Cross of Oswego in a recent interview.

The reason, Cross said, is the strategy the GOP adopted in Springfield early this year when the income tax proposal seemed to monopolize policy discussions in the capital. His House Republican Organization partnered with the Illinois Policy Institute, a nonpartisan free-market research group, to focus on the spending side of state government. Spending in the last decade has risen by 39 percent after accounting for inflation.

The GOP position was that discussion of a tax hike wasn't even on the table, and they demanded much needed fixes such as controls on spending, a commission to find duplicated, wasteful and obsolete state programs, and reforms in paying for Medicaid and the under-funded state pensions.

Republicans gained leverage when Democrats failed during the regular session to enact a tax hike and the Legislature went into overtime, where a supermajority is required to pass tax increases. Democrats don't have that in the House. The next regular session starts in January. Speculation has it Democratic legislators will know then what kind of primary challenges they face and, if the outlook is favorable, Madigan and they may be willing to raise taxes.

Regardless of how that turns out, Cross believes the GOP's new identity will play well in the 2010 elections among voters he sees as upset about the economy and spending, the Rod Blagojevich scandal, seven years of one-party incompetence in Springfield and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's sales tax increase.

Republicans would have to win 12 seats to take the House. "There are going to be 15 or 20 races we will push," said Cross. One GOP strategist counts 16 seats that in the last three election cycles the party lost by 2 or 3 percentage points. "It's unbelievable the number of people who want to run," said Cross, though he didn't offer any names. "This is the best year we've had in recruiting -- people are disgusted, they see an opportunity, they think they can win."

He expects open seats as some Democratic lawmakers, "frustrated with what's going on in the House" and the Democratic scandals, decide not to seek reelection

Cross figures funding 15 to 20 races would cost $5 million. "We don't have $5 million at this point," he conceded. But he spoke optimistically of "people being aggressive about wanting to give us money." Still, he said, "Maybe we can't fund every one of those races, but if there's a trend and there's a wave [in throw-the-bums-out voting], maybe the tail end of that 15 to 20 can jump on that wave." He said GOP poll numbers are better than in 1993 before the big Republican year of 1994.

Helping form that GOP wave will be the U.S. Senate candidacy of Mark Kirk. "We haven't had someone that competitive at the top of the ticket in a long time."

Perhaps the ace in the hole for Republicans is the pay-to-play trial of Democrat Blagojevich. It's set to start in June, so it will be fresh in the memory of voters. Comment at suntimes.com.

Painting

Painting
Originally uploaded by countygop

Check out the newest addition to our office! This lovely custom painting came to Chairman Klaas courtesy of Pamela Ratmeyer. Thank you again, Pam!

Guest Editorial: Sonia Sotomayor

by Rafael Rivadeneira, Illinois Republican National Hispanic Assembly

In nominating Hon. Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, President Obama broke yet another promise to the American people. He promised hope and change and unity—but with Hon. Sotomayor, he brought anything but.

She has proved to be—through her words and rulings—one of the most divisive, racist, and sexist jurists this country has seen since before the Civil Rights Movement. It’s hard to imagine the reaction from the Left if President Bush would’ve nominated or appointed or simply had dinner with someone who said, “I would hope that a wise White Man with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.”

Not only would that nominee or appointment or dinner guest be ridden out of town by folks pumping their pitchforks, but the cry for the President himself to resign would’ve deafened us all!

And yet, we don’t hear much when President Obama’s nominee says, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Sure, some people critique her, but overall Republicans have proved too nervous to respond. We don’t want to be labeled “racist” for “attacking” a Latina. Or, more truthfully, we fear losing Hispanic votes.

Fear not, friends. She’s overcome remarkable hardships and adversity in her life. She is tough and strong and wise, indeed. She can take getting called to the carpet on her beliefs. (And thinking we need to take it easy on someone because of race is racist in and of itself!). And Hispanic votes? Well, you have mine still. And the Democrats didn’t exactly shave votes when they went after Miguel Estrada.

We as a party need to condemn her hateful, divisive, sexist, and racist remark. What she said is horrible, wretched hate speech. Nothing less. Words like hers have been used to oppress (and enslave!) so many groups of people throughout history—including her (and my) own. Her line of thinking is behind so much evil.

We as a party need to call for the retraction of her nomination and an apology from her as well as President Obama for thinking a blatant racist and sexist jurist would be appropriate to serve on the U.S Supreme Court.

Our president has shown poor judgment here. According to Hon. Sotomayor, maybe his race and sex are to blame. Perhaps if he were a wise Latina, he’d have come to a better conclusion.

Illinois Budget Proposal

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Click on the image below to expand and read it; alternately, you may download a PDF of the agenda by right-clicking here and selecting "Save Target..."