REGION: Hunter and Issa slam House health care bill

NC TImes ^ | 11/2/09 | Marc Walker

[pissant]

U.S. Reps. Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter said they opposed the health care reform legislation unveiled Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, was still reading the nearly 2,000-page bill on Friday and not yet ready to give his opinion, spokesman Fritz Chaleff said.

Issa, R-Vista, said the bill that emerged Thursday was "crafted in secrecy" and fails to provide the quality and affordable coverage that had been promised.

"Rather than seizing an opportunity to produce a bipartisan health care bill that reduces costs, expands coverage and protects choice, Speaker Pelosi has unveiled a 2,000-page bill that grows the deficit and the bureaucracy instead of improving affordable health care coverage," Issa said in a written statement.

Hunter, R-El Cajon, said the bill is too expensive and he vowed to vote against any version that includes a public option run by the government in competition with the private sector.

"The plan unveiled by House Democrats represents more of the same," he said in a statement released by his office. "Despite the need for responsible health care reform, this proposal once again amounts to nothing more than a massive government takeover of our health care system."

There was no official estimate on the cost of the legislation. The Congressional Budget Office said the bill's coverage of uninsured Americans would cost slightly more than $1 trillion over a decade.

An additional $230 billion or more in higher fees for doctors treating Medicare patients, included in an earlier version of the bill, was stripped out and will be voted on separately.

[pissant]

A chip off the old block

[pissant]

DII Ping

[wastedyears]

I’m glad I voted my convictions in the primary in 2008.

[your local physicist]

This bill is a massive piece of trash and it stinketh.

[Jabba the Nutt]

I don’t agree with Issa on everything, but he’s a fighter and he’s effective. Issa was the guy, who started the Gray Davis recall in California and other things, which I can’t now recall.