Email From Sen. Richard Durbin

[mommas_boy]

Dear Pham,

I sent an email to His Honor, Sen. Richard Durbin about the debate in Health Care Reform. Sen. Durbin is the senior senator from Illinois, a Democrat, and a Catholic. In fact, he is listed as a parishoner at the parish I grew up at in Springfield. Mr. Durbin was conscientious enough to actually get back to me (if only with a form letter). His email is below, edited to remove my personal information. I need some help looking at his claims. Are his claims correct? Can you refute them?

Thanks!

[indent]
Dear [Kristopher],

Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about health care reform. I appreciate hearing from you.

Congress is working to develop a health care reform plan that provides quality and affordable insurance coverage to millions of Americans who are uninsured or unsatisfied with their health insurance options. The high cost of insurance currently keeps dependable, quality health care coverage out of reach for many Illinoisans.

The reforms we are considering in Congress will give middle-class families assurance of stable and secure coverage, stable and affordable costs, and better quality care. We will put an end to discrimination based on preexisting conditions and end annual or lifetime caps on coverage. Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage, or dropping you, because of your medical history or because you get sick. [b]Unfortunately, opponents of reform have spread rumors about the legislation that are distorted and in many cases flat-out untrue.

For example, no version of the legislation mandates abortion coverage. No version gives health insurance to illegal aliens. No version creates "death panels" to decide when senior citizens should die. No version gives the government direct access to your bank account. No version makes private health insurance illegal.

Each of these untruths has been spread by defenders of the status quo to scare people away from the reforms that are so badly needed.[/b] The White House has developed a webpage to provide facts about health care reform proposals under consideration and to set the record straight when special interests distort the facts to undermine support for reform. Please feel free to check out the claims you hear at http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.

I believe most Americans share my commitment to these goals of health care reform. I will keep your concerns in mind as I work for an approach that provides secure and stable coverage, affordable costs, and better quality care.

Thank you again for writing. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

RJD/kg
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EDIT: Emphasis mine.

[mommas_boy]

*grr fiddler*

[Apotheoun]

Here is a link to the House bill: [url="http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf"][u]Health Care Reform[/u][/url]

Now, you will not find terms like "death panels" in the bill, but the reform act is vaguely worded enough, and in many cases leaves the actual working out of the health plans to the "czar" who will run this new bureaucracy, that practically anything is possible.

At the moment I am concerned by the requirement that one purchase a health plan that meets federal regulations or suffer punitive taxes. I am also concerned by the fact that the federal poverty line (approx. $10,400.00 a year) will be used to determine any assistance or exemptions from having to purchase a health plan. I live in the SF Bay Area and I made less than $18,000.00 last year, which is above the federal poverty line, but the actual poverty line for a single person living in the Bay Area (due to the high cost of living) is $28,000.00 a year. Alas, the federal takeover of health care is going to ultimately hurt the working poor.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Apotheoun

[mommas_boy]

So, we're still fighting with the fiddler on the title of this thread. Anyway, looking for some help in replying to the good Senator.

[Didymus]

He's changing the point. We don't want the bill to merely not mandate abortion coverage. We want the bill to mandate that abortion will [i]not[/i] be covered (with tax dollars.) He and the president have been playing word games with this for so long and it's really annoying.

Anyways, I had no idea he was Catholic. I'm going to have to become more vocalized in my opposition to him..

Edited November 11, 2009 by Didymus

[mommas_boy]

He used to be very ardently pro-life. [url="http://www.nrlc.org/Judicial/Durbin/Durbin1982Letter.pdf"]He even pledged support for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe[/url]. But he changed his mind when he got to Washington. The following is from a Meet the Press interview:

[indent]
MR. RUSSERT: It's interesting, because in your own political past, when you were a congressman in the House of Representatives in 1983, you believed that Roe vs. Wade was incorrectly decided. You filled out a questionnaire calling for a constitutional limit to ban all abortions. You wrote a constituent saying that "The right to an abortion is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution."

SEN. DURBIN: I'll concede that point to you, Tim. When I came to Washington...

MR. RUSSERT: So are these views out of the mainstream?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, at that point, I can tell you I came to Congress not having seen what I think is the important part of this debate and not understanding, if you will, really what was behind it. You know, it's a struggle for me. It still is. I'm opposed to abortion. If any woman in my family said she was seeking abortion, I'd go out of my way to try to dissuade them from making that decision. But I was really discouraged when I came to Washington to find that the opponents of abortion were also opponents of family planning. This didn't make any sense to me. And I was also discouraged by the fact that they were absolute, no exceptions for rape and incest, the most extraordinary medical situations. And I finally came to the conclusion that we really have to try to honor the Roe vs. Wade thinking, that there are certain times in the life of a woman that she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her family and with her conscience and that the government shouldn't be intruding. It's true that my position changed, but as Abraham Lincoln said when they accused him of changing his position, "I'd rather be right some of the time than wrong all the time."
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[Apotheoun]

The senator has my prayers, and based on his actions in Congress he is going to need them.