House GOPs Vote Unanimously Against Killing Government Health Care
By Jon Ponder, Pensito Review - August 1, 2009
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee exposed their hypocrisy on the government option when they voted against a Democratic congressman’s amendment that would have killed a government health care program — Medicare:
Yesterday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) decided that it was “put-up or shut-up time for the phonies who deride the so-called ‘public option.’ He offered an amendment that would eliminate government-run Medicare… Not a single member of Congress voted for the amendment…
Republicans are refusing to acknowledge the hypocrisy in their statements warning about “socialized” medicine and their support for Medicare. Of course, conservatives also opposed the creation of Medicare in the 1960s and made many of the same claims that their counterparts are doing today. Forty-four years later, Medicare has helped America’s senior citizens live longer, healthier lives. By not voting for Weiner’s amendment, conservatives are acknowledging that their supposedly substantive claims about health care reform are nothing more than crass political fear-mongering.
The “government option” in the health-care debate would simply make available to all Americans the same sort of medical benefits provided by Medicare and to the military, veterans, members of Congress and federal workers.
Many of the people who would benefit most from a government insurance safety net are the same low-income conservatives who support the GOP pols whom the health-insurance industry are paying to kill the government option. These Fox News watchers and Dittoheads are being duped into acting against their own self-interests again.
