Meeting Pat Toomey

I had a really great opportunity last night to attend a fundraiser with Pat Toomey, who is currently running for Arlen Specter's seat in the Senate. I was able to ask him specifically what he feels needs to be done now that health care has passed, and was very happy with his answer. Perhaps the most important thing he said was that he firmly believes we need to do everything possible to repeal it. There are a lot of republicans in office right now who say it would be great to repeal it, but it can't happen. Toomey stands strong and wants to do everything possible to get it repealed.

He also said something else very important. He pointed out that the House of Representatives is in charge of the budget, so if we can have a great election this November and take over the House, then the congressmen can block financing new health care bureaucracies. He pointed out that things are looking really great for taking back the House this election cycle, but who knows what might happen in the next six months, so we can't be complacent.

Later, during a group Q&A period, someone else asked Toomey what he would do differently to better reform health care. I think you will all agree that his answer was exactly what we have discussed together. He said three specific things that are he cited as the most important:

1. Give regular people the same tax benefits that companies get for buying insurance in order to stop insurance being connected to jobs.
2. Open up the markets so there's more competition in insurance companies, especially between states.
3. Tort reform.

He, of course, went into more detail on each of those, and everything he said was right on. A funny comment he made about the second one was something along the lines of, "It's amazing to me that I can buy car insurance nationwide from a little green lizard, but I can't get health insurance from another state." (That's not an exact quote, but you get the gist.) He got a good laugh on that one.

At this point, the best thing we can do to is to get good, solid people in the House and the Senate that will do everything they can to undue what has been done. After studying Pat Toomey's record and meeting him last night, I feel confident that he will do everything he can to get that done. If you would like to find ways of supporting him in his campaign against Sen. Specter, let me know and I can send you some more information!

One last note, he discussed many other things than just health care, and he especially focused on getting our country out of debt. I was very impressed with all of his answers, but because we started the blog to focus on health care, I stuck to that in my post. If you want to know more about other things he said, however, let me know and I'd be happy to send you more information via email. :0)