DearCongressman.net

Dear Representative ____,

I support and encourage you to vote FOR the pending legislation HR-2, To REPEAL the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, specifically Public Law(s) 111–148 and 111-152 .

I support and encourage you to pursue full and unconditional REPEAL of all legislation intended to implement what is being referred to as Obamacare. I believe this is a primary reason for your election to your current seat.

• Whatever issues there are in the healthcare markets that properly call for legislative remedy, Public Law 111-148 and related provisions in Public Law 111-152 must be fully and completely REPEALED in order to enable honest and open consideration of the relevant issues with a clean slate.
   
• Obamacare is an unprecedented and inappropriate intrusion into the private lives of citizens and residents of ______, and is beyond the proper purview of the federal government as bound by the Constitution.

In response to my earlier letter (here), my Democrat Senator (who is an incumbent and was NOT up for re-election in 2010) emailed back this reply.

[Note: I have removed identifying information as they are irrelevant.  This senator's points are typical pro-Obamacare party-line talking points.  My immediate reactions are included as editor's notes.  I am working on a full reply to the Senator and will post it here.  Stay tuned!]

Dear Mr. _______:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding the Affordable Care Act, I always appreciate hearing from the people I serve back home in _____and welcome the opportunity to address this issue.

Since health reform legislation was signed into law in March of 2010, many important provisions have taken effect. It is very important to me that my constituents understand how their health care will be improved under the law, and that they are receiving correct and up to date information. Below are a few of the provisions that took effect last year, in 2010:

It's rather interesting, really.

A recent post on Popvox opposing the recently-introduced HR-21 - which seeks to re-amend the Internal Revenue Code to remove from it the Obamacare mandate that all citizens and residents of the United States be required to purchase government-approved health care insurance or face a substantial penalty and/or tax - said this:

" ... everyone should have health insurance. Anyone who thinks they don't need it is being naive and has never seen a hospital or ER bill ... we need everyone buying insurance for risk pooling. This will keep insurance prices reasonable -- if only sick people buy health insurance, insurance companies raise their prices, which is the last thing we need right now."

The degree of economic ignorance displayed in this individual's post is remarkable - but is regrettably not all that uncommon.

One may indeed be naive to not purchase insurance to help cover the costs of catastrophic illness or injury that may potentially occur to them at some point in their life, but if they wish to bear that risk themselves, that is properly their choice.

The idea that in order for healthcare insurance to be "affordable", EVERYONE must be forced to pay into an imposed insurance "pool", is the same mis-guided notion that in order for postage to be affordable, the government must have a monopoly on the delivery of certain classes of mail.

Who owns the Internet?

The immediate instinct is to respond - "Why, nobody owns the Internet!  The Internet is for everybody!"

The Internet however is something of a non-thing.

What the "Internet" actually is, is an inter-connecting web of separate computers and computer networks.

Some of these computers and networks ARE government owned-and-operated.

The Internet (ARPNET) first started as a redundant method of connecting military, scientists, and military contractor computers, for communication and information-sharing across wide geographical areas.

It was okay for its time, but it never even worked that well.

Eventually the genius of the free market caught on, and the thing really took off!

Today, most of the components that make up our ability to connect with computers, servers, and networks world-wide are privately owned.

It was a post that neatly almost fully encapsulates the problem posed by the Obamacare law.

In a recent post on Popvox, while registering their opposition to the just-introduced HR-2, "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act", a poster indicated that while THEY did not have a pre-existing condition, an unemployed child under 27, or a need for expensive prescription drugs (all mandated coverages under Obamacare), they had friends and family who WOULD receive benefits for these under the law.

Presumably, these are all coverages that his friends and family or their employer-based health care insurance had previously and voluntarily chosen not to contract for with their insurer.

Now my question is, why does this individual think it is okay to force everyone to buy something, just because he knows people who might be able to use something included in it?

If someone feels that there is a deficiency or something lacking in a product or service currently being sold, the American way of dealing with that is to start a company or band together with other investors to start a company, to produce or provide exactly the product they want.

Dear Congressman --

I am writing to urge you to OPPOSE and to advocate AGAINST any further increases to the federal debt ceiling, and to aggressively pursue sharp reductions of federal spending in all budget areas.

It is long past time for the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government, and the government of the State of _______, to live within its means - which means spending less than you take in, NOT by constantly raising our taxes to support a runaway spending addiction.

There is more than enough money already in the system at reasonable levels of taxation to support ALL of the departments, staff, and activities necessary and proper for the carrying out of those enumerated powers and duties specifically and Constitutionally delegated to the Federal government and to the State of ____.

The solution then is as simple as it seems to be politically distasteful.

Two things today:

• The "sky is falling" controversy over increasing the federal government's credit limit

and

• PPACA personal mandate increasingly "out", but keep the sugar-daddy benefits?

They're at it again.

For the Democrats ever since - well, forever - everything they want involves dire predictions that the sky will fall and the world come to an end if we do not go along with their latest proposal for larger, more expensive, more intrusive government.

And yes, there are more than a fair share of Republicans who also buy into that load of manure, or who have employed similar claims for their own priorities.  And some crisis' are actually real.

Remember the old parable tale about the boy who cried "wolf!"?

Forefront this week is the demand that in order to continue funding the LAST round of bad decisions, that the nation's debt ceiling (think of it as the US government's credit card limit) be raised.

Why is it?

Why is it that those same who demand that (everyone else) do with LESS - less consumption, less gasoline, less resources, less energy, less water, less healthcare, less after-tax wealth (but MORE toxic-mercury curly-fry light bulbs) -are the same brainiacs claiming that GOVT can't somehow do with one dime less, one fewer bureaucrat, or one less agency -and are (again) claiming catasthophe if we don't continue driving ourselves over a cliff, by not once again raising the administration's and Congress's credit card limit?

Okay - it's kind of a rhetorical question.

Enough is enough.  One trillion in new debt in only seven months?  This is the fourth or fifth raising of the debt ceiling, just since the current administration received control of the ship of state barely two years ago!

This goes beyond irresponsible and unsustainable.  It's just dumb.

Over 2000+ pages to enact, as-yet-untold tens of thousands of pages to regulate - two pages to repeal (and one of those pages is likely unnecessary.)

'Job-killing' Obamacare is, but if we were still educated in this country the real focus would be on liberty lost.

I've no patience for this to be a symbolic "well we tried" repeal vote. This repeal needs to be re-introduced repeatedly until it sticks, & used to make the case for limited government, and nullification by the states.

Download it here.

Worth noting - the American Declaration of Independence was written on one (large) piece of paper.

The entire structure of our government - the Constitution - was written on four.

Any law that is too long for every legislator to read fully and too complicated for the average Joe on the street to understand, should be summarily voted down.

If a bill requires side-deals and bribes to get it passed, then it isn't in the best interests of Americans, or the country.

What is remarkable about the current flap over the plans of the new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to read aloud the entire Constitution at the opening of the 112th House session, and to require that all legislation introduced cite the specific Constitutional authorization for such legislation - is that these are at all considered "controversial" moves.

In court, the accused has the right to have the charges against him read aloud. In my mind, Congress, and the President, currently stand properly accused of crimes against the Constitution, the federation of States, and the citizens of those States and the United States.

All officers and officials of the United States government take an oath of office, swearing to "uphold and defend" the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic.

It's hard to defend that which you have not read, and do not understand.  And if you are unwilling to do so, you should not be in office - as many found out in 2010 to their chagrin, as they either "retired", or were somewhat unceremoniously tossed out on their donkey-asses by an electorate with a somewhat better understanding of what they should have been doing  (or not doing) in office.