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Reid: Real People Understand The Urgency For Health Reform
democrats.senate.gov ^

Posted on 12/23/2009 1:08:30 PM PST by Sub-Driver

December 23, 2009 Reid: Real People Understand The Urgency For Health Reform

Washington, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor this afternoon. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:

“The health care votes we have held this week have been procedural in nature. Each has been a party-line vote. And much of this debate has focused on politics.

“But health reform is not about procedure, or partisanship, or politics.

“It is about people. People like the thousands who write us every day. A small, small fraction of those letters are right here on my desk.

“Each one of these letters represents a story, a tragedy, a life, a death – a person. People who wake up every morning and struggle to get health care or struggle to hold on to it. People who lie awake every night second-guessing the agonizing decisions they have to make about what to sacrifice just to stay healthy.

“Here’s a letter that was written to Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania:

‘Dear Senator Casey: In a country like the United States, we shouldn’t need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia.’

“Here’s what another one of these letters says – a plea that a father in North Las Vegas, Nevada sent to me:

‘Can you imagine what it’s like to have a doctor look you in the eye while you hold your one-year-old child and tell you that you will likely outlive your son? I am certain my story is not unique. But it is real.

‘Stop forcing Americans to use the most expensive point of service – the emergency room – to get what the system won’t give them.

‘Let’s make all Americans equal in the eyes of health care. Please.’

“This is not about the number of pages in this bill. It is about the number of people whom this bill will help.”


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cultureofcorruption; harryreid; healthcare; obamacare; thebiglie; youlie
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He's high.........
1 posted on 12/23/2009 1:08:31 PM PST by Sub-Driver
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To: Sub-Driver

Dingy, I don’t spell ‘URGENT’ four years from now.


2 posted on 12/23/2009 1:09:50 PM PST by JPG (Al Gore, the several million degree man.)
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To: Sub-Driver

They need to put down the crack pipe.


3 posted on 12/23/2009 1:10:35 PM PST by ColdOne (ColdOne (Merry Christmas))
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To: Sub-Driver

If there were urgency, it would lead to coverage within 90 days.


4 posted on 12/23/2009 1:11:36 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Question authority!Who is the University of East Anglia to drive the 'Global Climate Change' agenda?)
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To: Sub-Driver

Actually, real people understand the urgency of getting those criminal looters out of office ASAP.


5 posted on 12/23/2009 1:11:44 PM PST by ScottinVA (The arrogance of this Congress is staggering. November 2010 can't get here quickly enough.)
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To: Sub-Driver

“equal in the eyes of health care”

I want your HC, Harr.


6 posted on 12/23/2009 1:11:57 PM PST by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah."Our middle regiment, Gloria Patri, Filio et Spirito Sancto.)
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To: Sub-Driver
we shouldn’t need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia

Yeah! To hell with giving to charities voluntarily! Let the government pay for that!

7 posted on 12/23/2009 1:12:08 PM PST by Brett66 (Where government advances, and it advances relentlessly , freedom is imperiled -Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: Sub-Driver

Reid said that two people die from no health care every ten minutes - but - this HC is four years out ... so how many people will die from now until it’s implemented .....


8 posted on 12/23/2009 1:12:10 PM PST by SkyDancer ('Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not..' ~ Thomas Jefferson)
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To: JPG

We need it “now” before they are tossed out flat on their asses as they were in 1994 when they failed to pass (but did attempt to ram through) Hillarycare.


9 posted on 12/23/2009 1:12:38 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Question authority!Who is the University of East Anglia to drive the 'Global Climate Change' agenda?)
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To: JPG

This guy is delusional.


10 posted on 12/23/2009 1:13:02 PM PST by Roklok
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To: Sub-Driver
Government version of reality.

Like something straight out of 1984.

11 posted on 12/23/2009 1:13:06 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: Sub-Driver
Real people as in ACRON/Rock the Vote registered voters...The Cemeteries are full of them.


12 posted on 12/23/2009 1:13:36 PM PST by darkwing104 (Lets get dangerous)
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To: Brett66
we shouldn’t need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia

The March of Dimes now prevents some birth defects through abortion.

Do they still take charitable contributions at checkout counters too?

13 posted on 12/23/2009 1:13:40 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Question authority!Who is the University of East Anglia to drive the 'Global Climate Change' agenda?)
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To: Sub-Driver

Sounds like they’re worried.


14 posted on 12/23/2009 1:13:59 PM PST by neodad (USS Vincennes (CG 49) "Freedom's Fortress")
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To: SkyDancer

Just under 440,000!


15 posted on 12/23/2009 1:14:07 PM PST by rocksblues (Sarah and Joe, Real Americans!)
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To: Sub-Driver

I understand the urgency... to get government out of American healthcare. Let’s see some tort reform, removing of state boundaries on insurance plans, and 90% of all Congresscritters out on their butts.


16 posted on 12/23/2009 1:14:25 PM PST by pgyanke (You have no "rights" that require an involuntary burden on another person. Period. - MrB)
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To: Sub-Driver

‘Dear Senator Casey: In a country like the United States, we shouldn’t need a tip jar at an ice cream shop to raise money for a kid with leukemia.’

No, we need a system where the money is taxed right out of one’s labor and diverted to ACORN and elections fraud years before a kid with leukemia is able to stand in line in government run health fiasco style.


17 posted on 12/23/2009 1:14:52 PM PST by Voter62vb
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To: Sub-Driver

He’s low.....


18 posted on 12/23/2009 1:15:02 PM PST by b4its2late (Before you can control a horse, you have to break it. Sound familiar?)
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To: Sub-Driver

Reid is going to understand that real people don’t like mandatory health insurance when real people vote him out of office.


19 posted on 12/23/2009 1:15:31 PM PST by pallis
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To: Sub-Driver

Article I submitted for an on-line publication:

Dear Congress:

There’s been a lot of speculation about the people who attend the town hall meetings, tea parties, or who marched on Washington. We’ve been called right-wing fanatics, Nazis, and extremists by our own representatives and senators in an effort to brand us irrelevant. But, since none of those labels come close to who we really are, I’m going to tell you a little about myself and my neighborhood to give you a snapshot of the rabble rousers that are causing all this unwelcome commotion.

I work in the IT field and probably make better than average money. I live in a 60-year old house, a ranch in a nice neighborhood. Being older, the house really needs new siding, the existing siding is buckling and starting to crack. I got an estimate and, with the garage, it’s around $8,000. I can’t afford that right now so it will have to wait. I have another neighbor who needs a new window, hers is leaking. It’s around $1,500 dollars for the window and repairs and has to be paid in cash so that too will have to wait. I took a walk in my neighborhood the other day and noticed a new red door on one of my neighbor’s home, long overdue but nice.

That’s when it struck me that while we struggle to scrape together the cash for a new window or door, you guys sit up there on Capitol Hill and throw hundreds of billions of dollars around like it’s loose change, each of you eager to add another few billion for some pet project in your district that will help your image and political career. How much has your reckless, selfish, immoral spending cost us? How much could we have done for our families and homes with the subsidies you gave other people for their old cars much less the stimulus, bank bailout, auto bailout, and other pending blockbusters?

We’re the protestors, the people who need a new door or window, who want you to stop pushing us around, telling us what we can and can’t have, how much of our hard-earned money you’ll let us keep, and even what doctors you’ll allow us to see. The people who are trying desperately to be heard by a government that arrogantly and steadfastly refuses to listen.

We didn’t vote for a powerful leader when we elected you, we voted for a representative of the people back home in your district or state, not just those who can give you a plum committee chair or add millions to your war chest, but all of us. Yes, even the ones you don’t personally like or those of us who don’t agree with your ideals. You were elected to represent us, not to impose your will on us. I don’t know when I started worrying about what my government is doing to me instead of for me but sadly, that’s where we are.

So, who are we really, all these people who dare to show up at town hall meetings ostensibly being held for us to voice our concerns, who burn up your phone lines and fax lines with those annoying calls and emails, or who join the nationwide tea parties and marches with that irritating first amendment thing about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Who are we? In the words of George Bailey:
“Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” … It’s a Wonderful Life.

It’s us, Dear Congress, We the People


20 posted on 12/23/2009 1:15:36 PM PST by Kenny
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