Nothing is Inevitable

Here's an interesting article about how to stop a health care takeover. I don't know how possible these ideas are, but it's worth a read. If you only have a minute and can't read the whole thing, be sure to read the last two paragraphs on the second page.

Meeting at Senator Casey's Harrisburg Office

Here are some pictures - Young Physicians and Their Families meeting at Senator Casey's Harrisburg office. Video clips from the meeting are coming soon.

Success!

After a lot of hard work, Linsy has managed to set up an appointment with Senator Casey! The time is tentatively set for 2:00 this Friday, and hopefully we will be able to confirm that later today. Senator Casey will be in DC, but since it's only going to be a 15-30 minute meeting, we felt it made more sense for us to go to Harrisburg, and we will have the meeting via video conference.

The only hitch is that to request an appointment, we had to give a set of names of who might be attending, and we had to limit the list. We thought we would be able to add more names when we actually got an appointment, but now it is unclear if we can or not. Linsy is working on finding out what we're able to do, and we'll let you know as soon as we have more information. For now, we want to know who is interested and available to attend on Friday. We were also wondering if anyone would be willing to babysit for those who are at the Capitol. Please let me know ASAP if you are interested in either or both.

Here is a list we compiled of our top concerns, put together based on what we heard back from you last week:

1. Quality of Care: Increased government involvement in healthcare takes away the doctors’ and patients’ ultimate discretion in making individual healthcare decisions. H.R. 3962 creates excessive government intervention through the creation of new bureaucracies (H.R. 3962 Sections 2401, 1162, 1401, 241, and 1802-3). Taking choices away from doctors and patients by giving authority to bureaucrats will lead to decreased quality of care. We believe that a new Center for Quality Improvement “to prioritize areas for best practices in the delivery of health care” will be cumbersome and costly and will not benefit patients. We believe that the quality of medical care available in this country is evidence that those most capable of recommending best practices are the medical experts in each respective field through continuing research and evidence based medicine.

2. Tort Reform: The House bill does not include comprehensive tort reform. Tort reform is inextricably linked to lower health care costs. Providing protection against frivolous and excessive law suits will allow physicians to focus on performing the necessary and warranted treatments as well as make the field of medicine a more desirable career choice by alleviating the current burdensome premiums.

3. Costs: As physicians we believe H.R. 3962 will create inefficiencies and will be very costly to America. Section 101 provides the HHS Secretary with authorities including “reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists.” The resultant rationing of care will be devastating for patients, causing many to never receive necessary treatment or suffer unnecessarily while on waiting lists.

4. Career Choices: This bill will impact career choices for seasoned physicians, physicians in training, and prospective physicians. Many existing physicians will be forced out of practice due to decreased physician reimbursement and the exponentially rising costs of compliance. Career choices of physicians in training will be directly impacted by this legislation, discouraging the costly training of advanced fellowships or deterring entrance to the specific fields most affected by the oppressive regulations. Many physicians will no longer pursue fields that are their ultimate interest or talent; ultimately a great disadvantage to patients. This legislation will also discourage prospective physicians from entering the medical field at a time when there is a shortage of healthcare providers.

Progress - Meetings with Holden, Casey, Specter

Hello Friends,

We have been contacted by all three offices! We are making great progress.

Thank you all for being a part of our meeting request forms to Senator Casey, Senator Specter and Representative Holden. I know health care reform is an issue close to all of our hearts. It is great that we are making our voices heard as “Young Physicians and Their Families”.

Representative Holden

Today I spoke with a staff member of Representative Holden’s D.C. office. He stated that he would like to work toward a January meeting with our group and requested further detail on our specific concerns regarding health care reform. I let him know our group could email him a list of our top key concerns by Monday (12/7).
• Please respond to this email with your key health care reform concerns (top 1 – 3 concerns) by Sunday Evening (12/6). (They can be short such as "The House Bill does not include comprehensive tort reform." Natalie and I will work together to mold all of our responses into a listing for Holden’s office.
• Background: Representative Holden voted against the health care reform bill in the House. He may vote again on a health care reform bill if it makes it through Conference Committee. January is an ideal time to meet with him because (if a bill passes in the Senate) January is likely the timeframe for the Conference process and another vote in both houses.

Senator Casey

I spoke with Senator Casey’s D.C. office health care advisor today. She proposed a meeting for Friday, December 11. She says we would have the option of video conferencing in from the Harrisburg office or meeting at the D.C. office. The meeting can be scheduled for a time that works best for our group and should last 15-30 minutes.
• Please respond to this email if you and/or your spouse can come to a meeting on Friday, December 11. Include 1) what time that day you are available and 2) whether you would prefer to video conference from Harrisburg or meet in Casey's D.C. office.
(We requested Saturday, but Casey’s office does not schedule meetings on Saturdays.) I know Friday is not ideal, but hopefully work schedules allow so we can get a good group together. (I know Darin has night float so he can make it.)

Senator Specter

• Specter’s Executive Director for the Capital Region sent me an email earlier this week stating she would like to discuss possible options for meeting, but we have not yet spoken on the phone. I will keep you updated if anything manifests.

Please feel free to forward this to any friends. We would love as much input and participation as possible!Please feel free to contact me or Natalie Richards if you have any questions.

Best,

Linsy

In Case You Weren't Convinced

Here's another article which talks about the real costs of the health care bills being talking about in the Senate and that already passed the House. It's a real reminder of why we can't let up right now!!

While Linsy's working on helping us be able to meet with our senators and representatives, it might be a good idea to start working on what specific items we would like to talk about with them. Start making your list and checking it twice, and we'll get another meeting planned sometime very soon.

Charles Krauthammer is, as always, right on

Best quote from the article:

"The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.

"Then do health care the right way -- one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency."

Mr. Krauthammer's article, "Kill the Bills, Do Health Care Right," is definitely a good read if you have a couple of minutes.

Another Great Article

Mona Charen hits the nail on the head with this article. I'm very upset that Harry Reid (and others) keep claiming that there are no other options and that Republicans have yet to come up with any of their own solutions. This article talks about a couple of major ones, along with a lot of reasons why the bills going through Congress right now are very wrong.

Requesting Meetings with our Senators and Representative

Hi Ladies,

As many of you are aware, yesterday the Senate achieved the necessary 60 votes to initiate debate on its health care reform bill. This debate will likely start around Nov. 30 and last several weeks.

Many of us have discussed the option of requesting meetings with our senators and our representative to discuss this important issue. Senator Specter, Senator Casey, and Representative Holden’s websites all have meeting request forms. We do not know the likelihood that we will be granted a meeting, but any action to express our concerns on this important issue is valuable. A group of physicians, medical students, and families could be a strong and powerful voice.

The question for you ladies is: 1) Who would like their name to be included on the meeting request form? 2) What husband’s names can be included when we request a meeting?

If any of these meetings are granted, they would likely take place in Harrisburg or potentially D.C. Also, we will request that the meetings take place on a Saturday. If we include your name and a meeting is scheduled, that does not mean you would have to attend. Of course schedules change and we would adjust as necessary – but right now we just need to get names on the form and get the form submitted at this critical and important moment in the debate. Here is a short statement we will use in our request:

Dear Senator Specter (Senator Casey, Representative Holden): We would like to meet with you to express our perspectives and concerns regarding the health care reform bill currently before the Senate. As your constituents and as physicians, medical students and families of medical professionals, we will be deeply impacted by your vote on this important issue.

Thank you so much ladies! We plan to submit the forms midweek so let us know soon!

Thanks!

Linsy and Natalie

P.S. Its still important to contact our Representative in addition to our Senators because - If the Senate passes the bill, it will then move to Conference Committee – where the House and Senate bills will be molded into a compromise bill and then voted on again by our Senators in the Senate and our Representative in the House prior to signature from the President.

P.P.S. Let’s give it a good college try!

How to organize a protest in Washington DC

http://www.ehow.com/how_2051467_organize-protest-washington-dc.html

Marching in Washington

Ray and I are going down to Washington today. Does anyone want to caravan with us?

Time to Call!!

Tomorrow (Saturday) is a big day - the Senate will be voting about bringing Harry Reid's bill to the floor ahead of all the other bills they're dealing with. His plot is to ram his bill through the Senate just like Pelosi did with her bill. His bill is a little over 2,000 pages, has a monthly abortion tax, and will force everyone in the country to get health care or else... Please, please call your senators and tell them to vote no!!

Find out more about what Reid's trying to pull at Hotair and click here for a list of phone numbers for senators. If you have family in other parts of the country, please remind them to vote as well!!

Interesting Article

Here's a link to an article by Dick Morris which is an interesting read.

Operation Health Freedom

So it Passed in the House - What's Next?

As many of you are aware, the House of Representatives passed health care reform bill H.R. 3962 on November 7^th by a vote of 220 to 215. What are the next steps in the legislative process before health reform becomes law?

1. It is important to remember that each chamber (the House and the Senate) drafts a separate bill. The current health care reform bill in the Senate is S. 1796 (a different bill from H.R. 3962). S. 1796 is sponsored by Senator Max Baucus and is under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. This means the Senate Finance Committee conducts hearings regarding the bill, marks up the bill, and prepares it for Senate floor debate.
2. If the Senate’s health reform bill is passed, the next step in the legislative process is Conference Committee. In Conference Committee, a select group of Senators and Representatives meet together to iron out differences between the two bills with the goal of achieving a compromise. The Senators and Representatives involved in the Conference process are from the committees with jurisdiction over the bill. In the Senate – this is the Senate Finance Committee. The House Committees with relevant jurisdiction include primarily: House Ways and Means Committee, House Education and Labor Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee. I have been in Conference Committee meetings held in the U.S. Capitol and it is a very heated negotiation process. The bill that comes out of Conference can often be much different from the original bills.
3. Once compromise is achieved in Conference Committee, the Conference Report (combined bill) is sent back to both the House and the Senate for a vote.
4. The new bill must then be passed by both the House and the Senate before it can be sent to the President’s desk for signature.
5. The President signs the bill and it becomes law.

Health care reform is not yet a “done deal”. There are still several more steps before it becomes law. (I believe Senate floor debate is expected within the next few weeks. Sen. Tom Harkin stated Senate debate is expected to begin on Nov. 30 - the Monday following Thanksgiving. Please post as you hear updates.) And although the House already passed one version of health care reform, it must weigh in again with another vote on the bill that comes out of Conference. (It is not yet time to let your Representatives off the hook.) You can access the text, current legislative status, list of sponsors, and Congressional Research Service (CRS) Summaries of the House and Senate bills at:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

This Library of Congress website is indispensible in finding up to date legislative information. You can search for bills by bill number, phrases, or sponsors. (However, due to the popularity of the health reform issue, there is no need to search for the Senate and House bills because they are listed right on the home page of Thomas.loc.gov.) Lets watch this process closely and let our voices be heard at each important moment.

March on Harrisburg

For those of you interested, the details of the March on Harrisburg are below:

Event Agenda:
1:00 PM - Meet at City Island Parking Lot
2:00 PM - March begins from City Island to Capital Steps
2:30 PM - Rally begins on Capital Steps
4:30 PM - 2009 PA Grassroots Banquet Begins (Harrisburg Hilton) -- BANQUET IS FREE ! !

See also: pamarch.com

Billy and I and the kids will be there. Hope to see some of you there, too!

Sarah

Interesting Links

I haven't had a chance to read the full articles yet, but these were shared with me, so I thought I would pass the links along.

ABC Link
Pajamas Media
Wall St. Journal

Need Babysitting for the March?

Nancy B. is offering to watch kids if someone would like to attend the march this Saturday and needs a babysitter. Please contact her if you're interested so we can join our ranks with the others who will be there! If you're interested in carpooling, make a note in the comments section and we'll email to get it figured out.

As a side note, if you've been invited as an author, please feel free to start posting whenever you have something to add! If it's not working, let me know and we'll get it figured out. :0)

March on Harrisburg!

There's a large group walking from City Island to the Capitol in Harrisburg this coming Saturday. Get the details here!

Welcome!

A group of families got together this morning to discuss some hopes and concerns we have for our wonderful country. Our main focus right now is on Health Care, because we are very worried about what the bills going through the House and Senate will do to our freedom and how it will affect the United States of America. We believe in the free market and that while government is necessary, it must remain limited. We must always remember that the people run the government, and the government should never run the people. If the government takes over health care, our freedom and our rights will be severely diminished, which is why we are speaking out against what's being pushed through the legislature. Our main goals are

1. to find logical and fact-based arguments against a government health-care takeover
   
2. to argue not with anger or malice but to discuss our ideas with others in order to find the best possible solution
   
3. to provide a place where we can share information and help each other stay up to date with what's going on
4. to encourage each other by sharing what each of us is doing to have a positive effect on the country

We believe the most important thing to be done to drive down costs of health care is to get government out of it. Allow the free market to work, limit liability/tort reform, and allow insurance companies to work across state borders. We discuss the problem at large, but hope to focus especially on our hometown in Pennsylvania. This is not a republican or democrat blog, but a blog for anyone who loves the USA and wants real improvements to the health industry rather than a government takeover.

May God bless America. Let's make sure our voices are heard!