Instead of facing reality and supporting President Obama's realistic health care proposal, Sessions has chosen to support the current bankrupt system that keeps folks uninsured by announcing his opposition to the plans.
In doing so, he stuck to a script of well-rehearsed lies inventing things about the president's proposal that really aren't.
Here's what :Sessions is claiming on his taxpayer-supported web site:
"Yet the Majority has produced a job-killing, government-mandated health care plan financed on the backs of every American family, senior citizen, small business and employer. With a price tag of over $1 Trillion dollars, the Democrats’ plan would cut Medicare options for seniors and raise taxes on any employer or individual who does not embrace a government-run health care program. The result: an additional 4.7 million Americans could lose their jobs.
“More than 100 million Americans will lose their current private health insurance under a government-run health care system. Unsurprisingly, when the government competes with the private sector, patients lose and the government wins. By diminishing patient-choice, government-run health care empowers Washington to decide the access and care patients receive from their doctors.
“This is not change that Americans families and small businesses can afford.
It's clear with no real arguments to present against the president's proposal, Sessions is forced to resort to making things up to justify his morally and financially irresponsible position.
So much for Sessions being a conservative. When it comes to protecting insurance company's rights to deny coverage of pre-existing conditions and ending the practice of insurance companies denying care using the power of "recission," Sessions is as ultra-liberal as they get.
What is the reality about the legislation that Sessions is against? Here's some facts
one House committee came up with:
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 32nd Congressional District of Texas: up to 15,500 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 7,300 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 700 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $159 million in uncompensated care each year; and 140,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.
• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 15,500 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.
• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 7,300 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.
• Health care and financial security. There were 700 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.
• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $159 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.
• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 160,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 24% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 140,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.
• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 10,320 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 96.3% of taxpayers in the district.
At least where I live, the proposal isn't even close to what Sessions described with the effects that Sessions claimed. In fact, this report raises serious questions (as if they didn't exist already) about whether Sessions is in turn with not only the needs of his district but the facts.
Instead of making things up and inventing facts to suit his reality, Sessions should apologize to folks like me in his district who he has dishonestly represented ever since Tom DeLay gerrymandered my area into his district.
Pete Sessions is a disgrace to this area and state and I pray a strong reality-based opponent can be found who can send this scumbag down to a well-deserved defeat next year.
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