STATEMENT FROM THE CANDIDATE – John Robitaille:
The current version of the health care reform legislation being rammed through Congress is an overt attack on the US Constitution and will have dire consequences for Rhode Island. Plagued with secret deals to buy votes in Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida, Montana and Hawaii this bill is grossly bloated with pork. These disturbing back room deals continue to be brought to light as thousands of pages of this bill come under close scrutiny.

If the bill does becomes law, health care costs in Rhode Island will rise and there will be a dramatic increase in Federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) already confirmed the Senate bill would raise health insurance premiums for families by an average of $2,100. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have stated that the Senate bill will not lower health care costs but will add hundreds of billions of dollars in its first 10 years alone.

The White House proposal – increasing healthcare subsidies, plus an additional $1 billion for new federal bureaucracies – would raise both overall health care spending and the related federal share. It would also raise taxes on drug manufacturers and insurers by $101 billion – a cost that the CBO concluded “would be largely passed along to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage.”

The White House also proposes a near tripling of the “fair share” penalty for employers included in the Senate-passed bill from $750 to $2,000 – creating an even higher tax on jobs for companies that cannot afford to offer health care coverage. This job-killing provision could potentially force some employers to lower wages, delay hiring, or even lay people off. Rhode Island employers cannot afford this new tax and it will drive some into an economic death spiral!

- Advertisement -

Provisions of this bill also levy a tax on individuals who decide not to purchase “government approved” health insurance, prohibits states from making changes to their Medicaid programs, while requiring states to enroll 15 million new individuals in Medicaid coverage. These unfunded mandates will cost states nearly $35 billion in the bill’s first 10 years. Likewise, the White House version includes a vast expansion in Medicaid programs that would impose tens of billions of dollars in unfunded mandates on already cash-strapped states like Rhode Island. This will certainly widen an already onerous budget gap here in RI.

Also, this bill requires the use of federal dollars to subsidize plans that cover abortions – even if specific states opt-out of offering such plans on their insurance exchanges. It will also take $500 billion out of Medicare just when the baby boomer generation is becoming eligible for benefits. There are no tort reform provisions or other attempts to drive costs down. It’s simply an attempt to expand entitlements at the cost of all US taxpayers.

Where is the transparency and bipartisanship our president promised? While we certainly need health care reform, this is nothing more than the “my way or the highway” partisan politics that has outraged Americans since this administration has taken over. It appears that a self-imposed deadline is a higher priority than good public policy.

I ask all Rhode Islanders to join me in opposition to this bill. Call or email our congressional delegation and tell them we want real health care reform that addresses cost containment, tort reform, portability and competition. We don’t need a new bloated federal program, higher taxes and more entitlements.

John Robitaille
Republican Candidate for Governor

4 COMMENTS

  1. Open letter to Members of congress about health care reform :

    Dear Members of congress ,
    Here are questions for You :

    1 – Why we are the only industrial country on earth not have health care for all ? Look at all countries in EU ,England ,France , Italy ,Germany , Japan , Korea ,Canada,Israel ,Spain , …… Even dictatorship countries like Cuba ,Iran ……offer health care for their citizens .
    Do you think we are smarter than the rest of the world ? if You say We can not afford it why we can afford $ 700 billions a year or $ 7 trillion in 10 years on military ( spend on bombs & guns ) ?
    What do you expect people around the world think about us when they see We bring injured Dog from Iraq here for treatment ,while we left 50 millions of our own people with out medical care ? ,for sure they think We are insane !!!.
    Is your heart breaking when you see thousands of people get in line at midnight under cold weather each time they have FREE check up ? how about a woman never has chance to see doctor in 27 years ?

    2 – Do you and your family have health insurance if Yes so why not 50 millions of your fellow citizens NOT ?

    3 – How would you feel when any member of your family dies because of having no health insurance ? Think about 45 thousands of your fellow citizens and children die every year because of laking health care .

    4 – Children are future of the country , How our sick ,dump unhealthy children and young people can compete with Chinese , Japanese , European children in the future ?.our nation will be strong or not depend on their health , why we not invest on them for the healthy nation ? .

    5 – Millions of people use Emergency rooms as primary care .Thousands of Americans file bankrupt every year because of health care bills ,and at the end we still have to pay for them any way, why you are not find the smarter way ?

    6 – Why we spend the most on health care but still have 50 millions with out health care with broken system .
    7- why don’t You learn any thing from housing crisis ? Like housing cost in the past ,health care cost now is sky rocket ,many experts predict the next big crisis will be health care , millions people may die if health care reform failed.

    Businesses & companies have to pay to much for health care ,our products become so expensive compare to other countries.
    Many talent & skill people being wasted because they have do the job they don’t like for health care.
    Many inventions & new idea never become new business because the system hold people as hostages , people can not open business because they afraid losing their health insurance.
    No wonder unemployment is so high because Jobs can not be created .
    Once the health care reform pass , many skills & talents will be discovered , new businesses will be open with new inventions ,new ideas .American products will be exported around the world Instead of import too much from China , many jobs will be created .
    Super power special interests have super voice , millions of families have no voice .many comments from Internet ,media may be posted by special interests ,millions of people may not even have Internet access .
    Please forget about politic , It can be haft empty & haft full bottle of water story .
    Many people support or oppose may not tell full story . Think about many years a go 99 % of people believed the earth was flat .Remember back at the time when many of us believed Women should not be allowed to vote ?
    Not long ago 80 % of people opposed medicare & social security bill at that time .
    After 9/11 80 % of us believed war on Irag was good idea . some times special interest control story ,tell people the story they want and control mind of people , so please forget about politic.
    Please stand up and do what is right for future of our country .I believe if you vote YES on health care reform ,history will remember you as hero of our great nation .

    Take an action , pass health care reform NOW.

  2. I am sick of republicans ,I will never vote for them again .
    They are so crazy people .The health care reform bill now is similar to their bill back in 1993 ,so why they oppose It ???
    according to Republican party Sarah Palin is the smartest one in group and here is what She said ” We used to hustle on over the border for health care ….and I think,isn’t that kind of ironic now ? ” She admitting that her family used to go to Canada for medical treatment when she was a child , Canada has a single -payer system , which Palin oppose ! (Too bad for Canadian tax payers )
    Limbaugh the second smart one in the group also said ” I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.” .well too bad ,Costa Rica has had health care for all in 60 years already.( should Costa Rica taxpayers cover health care for this mad man ? )
    Republicans :
    Don’t You learn any thing from housing crisis ? like housing cost in the past ,health care cost is out of control .the next crisis will be health care crisis if health care reform failed ,millions of people may die .
    please forget about Republicans ,pass health care reform NOW.

  3. its time to pass health reform for the citizens of this great country, we hope it will pass by this week. thank to those who are for it and they will vote for the health care reform. one should be drop their insurance company simply because they have pre-existance illness.

  4. Debt_Spending_Problems_Short-Version:

    We need to pay for the 50% unfunded fiscal hole in Medicare before adding another unfunded healthcare program.

    Alan Greenspan said that Medicare is 50% unfunded causing amazing debt. During the healthcare summit, Rep Paul Ryan reported that Medicare has a $38 Trillion debt, $260,000 per taxpayer. The most paid per taxpayer is $7,000/yr in 2009. If we doubled taxes now and dedicated half to Medicare, we could pay off our Medicare debt in 38 years. Medicare debt moral: NEVER use debt to pay entitlements.

    If the government will NOT pay for entitlements with debt, the US may avoid going bankrupt; If the government repudiated its debt, the result would be hyperinflation; making money worthless, destroying the middle class and starving our people; this happened to Germany in 1923.

    O’Bama and Pelosi would have to increase taxes 229% to pay for their $12.7 Trillion in Welfare ($10.3trillion) and National Health ($2.4trillion) entitlements, $9,000/taxpayer per year. They’re BORROWING it; If we do nothing, can hyperinflation be more than two to four years off?

    In August 2009, the Washington Post said that O’Bama’s programs will be an additional $9trillion in the red by 2019.
    A USA Today story on 5/19/2008 estimated that the household liability for government programs is $61.7 trillion, or $531,472 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages. Tax receipts are down the most since the great depression, yet Mr. O’Bama is increasing spending by 25%. Brian Riedl reports, “in the short term, President Obama has offered a budget that would increase federal spending to a peacetime-record 24.5 percent of GDP by 2019 — not even counting the health care plan. Because tax revenues cannot keep up with this spending growth, the President’s budget would add $9.1 trillion in new debt over the next decade. It would double the national debt to 82 percent of GDP by 2019.”

    What will you do about this? Ask your congressman to vote down or repeal ALL UNFUNDED PROGRAMS. We do not need more debt.

    Sources:
    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Testimony/Facing-Americas-Long-Term-Entitlement-Challenges-Laid-Out-in-the-Financial-Report-of-the-United-States-Government http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/transcript-alan-greenspan/story?id=8743279
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022504074.html;
    http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/10winbulindincretpre.pdf
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/25/AR2009082501158.html
    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/09/Obama-to-Spend-103-Trillion-on-Welfare-Uncovering-the-Full-Cost-of-Means-Tested-Welfare-or-Aid-to-the-Poor
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-05-18-Redink_N.htm

    If the Democrat leaders in congress wish to have universal healthcare, they might add an additional 20% ‘VAT’ sales tax as the Europeans do. That’s the only option that doesn’t decrease the number of jobs. http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/index_en.htm