Mary Kate Cary

Democrats Should Focus on Unemployment, Not Healthcare

November 6, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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?

Tags:
unemployment,
healthcare reform,
democratic party,
healthcare

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You know being one of the counted unemployed and not having the benefits of being able to see a doctor or dentist, especially when I almost died from a high fever maybe.. I can offer a simple solution.

Since most Americans can't see that they are already paying for medical insurance for people here in America that have never contributed one cent into the program that allows them to see doctors.

Okay, as I see it everyone is worried that we will be taxed for whatever health care plan that the Government offers, and their right we will be! Unless... we stand up and say "No More Taxing Us" if you want to implement a program use the money that we (our Government) sends to other countries. I don't think that we should be funding anything outside of our country as long as we are in such bad shape ourselves. Wasn't it just a few years ago that they military misplaced 7.3 trillion dollars? I'm not sure if most of you know just how many zeros that is behind a digit that makes a trillion. Maybe it's because they say it like it's nothing that gives that impression. All I know is that if we phase out programs that aren't working, stop sending other countries money we don't have, we'd have more than enough money to implement a health care plan, extend our unemployment benefits and not cent of it would have to come from a new tax.

Jerry of GA 3:52PM March 01, 2010

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

YEH Ling-Ling of CA 2:33PM November 09, 2009

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 !!!!!!!

jerr of LA 2:26PM November 09, 2009

Mary Kate Cary

Mary Kate Cary

Mary Kate Cary is a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. She currently writes speeches for political and business leaders.

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