Democrats Should Focus on Unemployment, Not Healthcare
By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The unemployment rate raced into the double digits this morning, hitting 10.2 percent for the first time in more than 25 years. Earlier this week, voters in New Jersey and Virginia sent the White House a strong message that they're concerned about three top issues: jobs, jobs, and jobs.
So are the House Democrats proposing a jobs bill? How about the construction-heavy highway bill? No, they're pushing a trillion-dollar healthcare reform bill that will be voted on this weekend, despite the fact that over 10,000 Americans turned out to protest it on the Capitol steps yesterday. Those protesters are upset that the House plan includes a public option, in which government-run insurance would be an option for consumers. NPR is reporting that the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the House bill showed that only 2 percent of Americans would be using the public option by 2019, when the legislation is fully implemented. That's an interesting fact that's gone unreported. Why are we running up a trillion-dollar bill to cover only 2 percent of the population and increase costs for the rest of us?
And, to pay for this expensive new entitlement, the Baucus bill in the Senate proposes a new $40 billion tax on medical device manufacturers over the next 10 years. This includes the manufacturers of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors, both of which my daughter uses to manage her type 1 diabetes, and which are the next step toward an artificial pancreas for people with diabetes. Mona Charen, whose son also uses one, wrote about the devastating effect this tax will have on the industry, on kids who need this technology, and on the cost of healthcare (which will increase).
It seems too obvious to many of us: why are the Democrats pursuing healthcare reform that will kill cutting-edge innovation, raise costs, and affect only a small fraction of Americans when there are so many out of work? Do the House Democrats not hear and see what Americans are trying to tell them—in the polling booths, in the unemployment lines, and on the steps of the Capitol?
- Check out our political cartoons.
- Become a political insider: Subscribe to U.S. News Weekly, our digital magazine.
- Follow the Thomas Jefferson Street blog on Twitter.
Tags: Democrats | healthcare | unemployment
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (17) | Print
Reader Comments
Mass immigration exacerbates unemployment & healthcare costs
As an immigrant who used to prepare immigration applications, I must point out that every year one million legal immigrants, at least half a million illegal migrants, plus hundreds of thousands of “guest workers” continue to enter the U.S. Many of these foreign-born people will also have children born in the U.S. Although some immigrants are assets to the U.S., do President Obama, Congress and other American leaders realize that more people essentially means more jobseekers, patients, students, welfare recipients, polluters?
According to the March 2007 Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, about one-third of all foreign-born lacked health insurance; immigrants and their U.S.-born children under 18 accounted for nearly one third of all people in the U.S. without health insurance and more than 70 percent of the growth of the uninsured population in the U.S. According to a 10/26/9 Thomson Reuters report , waste in the U.S. healthcare system could total up to $850 billion a year
Instead of enacting some sort of immigration moratorium so that we will have a chance to substantially lower unemployment and achieve sensible healthcare reform, President Obama and many members in Congress are misleading Americans with “comprehensive immigration reform” -- amnesty for possibly 20 million illegal migrants and massive guest worker visas . If this “reform” is enacted, it could add 200 million U.S. and foreign-born relatives of legalized people and “guest workers” to the U.S. over the next 20 years! Do we have jobs or resources to provide healthcare for these newcomers? Meanwhile, little has been done to seriously teen pregnancies totaling 750,000 a year nationwide!
When will American leaders stop burying their heads in the sand?
Yeh Ling-Ling
Alliance for a Sustainable USA
Oakland, CA
Government insurance Company
What it really is,? is a Government Insurance Company ! A company that will lose Billions of dollars and the us tax payer will have to shore up each year ! They will run the completion out of business and the American tax payer goes even more broke. This is one of the first steps to take over country, next they will take over Energy, the the control over guns... Then we will have he USSA !!!!!!!
HEALTH CARE
THIS CONGRESS IS LEADING US DOWN A ROAD TOWARDS SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE. BOTTOM LINE PURE AND SIMPLE!!!!
PISTONE FOR CONGRESS 2010 www.pistoneforcongress.org
advertisement
