Here is the explanation in her own words:

Health care reform is, at its core, an economic issue, and addressing rising costs was always one of my highest priorities. Last year’s bill simply did not do enough to rein in costs or to reduce the federal deficit.

On March 19th she declared tha she would change her vote to Yes because:

“We now have a bill that, while not perfect, represents the change needed to put the economy and our health care system on a sustainable and positive path – a bill that includes numerous ideas from both Republicans and Democrats.

“It was my commitment to families and businesses in Florida’s 24th District to be a voice for fiscally responsible, common-sense solutions and positive change for our children and their children. This bill represents those priorities, and that is why I will vote yes.”

Now she says:

As I have considered health insurance reform, a critical priority in my decision-making has been that reform must be fiscally sound. Unlike the original health care bill before the House, the reform bill that I supported is fiscally responsible and takes critical steps to rein in health care costs that are overwhelming our economy. This reform represents the single largest deficit reduction effort in over a decade, reducing the deficit by over $140 billion in the first 10 years and $1.3 trillion in the decade to follow.

Apparently, the only thing that changed was her opinion. She voted No the first time, and Yes the second time – to essentially the same bill. I guess now when she runs for re-election in the fall she can claim ” I voted against it before I voted for it.”

I hope she is happy with her vote, because come November she will be unemployed.

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The lawsuit contends two main issues: 1) it is unconstitutional to penalize citizens that choose not to purchase health insurance; and 2) the entitlement program illegally burdens the Florida taxpayers with huge increases in Medicaid costs.

The experts at Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration have determined that Obama’s Medicaid expansion would cost taxpayers over $1.1 billion. This unfunded mandate is a budget wrecker for Florida and one we should not be forced to endure. Floridian’s hard work should support their families, not bigger government.

However, the cost to Florida’s seniors may even be greater. One study sited recently by the New England Journal of Medicine indicates almost half of all general practice doctors would feel compelled to leave medicine altogether if Obama’s proposed plan passed.

Bigger government, larger entitlement programs and additional financial obligations to the people of Florida are not the solution and will not lead us to economic recovery.

The people of Florida and our great nation do not have one more dime to send to Washington. I will do everything within our rights to make sure Florida stays on a road to economic recovery–I thank you for your support!

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Floor remarks of Sen. Bill Nelson

March 24, 2010

Mr. President, for the first time, we as a nation are recognizing that people have a right to not be destroyed by sickness.

Under the Senate bill passed by the House and signed into law by the president – folks will no longer have to choose between their health and their pocketbooks.

Parents will no longer have to worry about whether they can afford to get their kids to the doctor.

Seniors won’t have to wonder if Medicare will still be there for them several years down the road.

Health-care reform doesn’t mean people won’t have to continue to take responsibility for themselves and their families.

The bill we passed – and the even the one we’re now debating – improves health care affordability and access for all. But it still requires that folks do their part.

Families that can afford to will be asked to contribute to the cost of their coverage. And people are expected to get regular primary care – so that they don’t end up in the emergency room with something that could’ve been treated easily and cheaply had it been addressed sooner.

But very, very importantly, we’re also going to hold the insurance companies accountable.

We’re finally telling them – you can’t drop someone just because they get sick. You can’t cap someone’s benefits because you’re tired of paying for their care. And you can’t decide not to offer someone coverage because they have a preexisting condition.

We’re telling them: no more; no more; no more.

We’re also saying to our seniors – we as a nation remain unwavering in our commitment to protect and preserve Medicare for today, tomorrow and the next millennium.

You know, there’s been an awful lot of misinformation going around about something called Medicare advantage.

Fact is, the original Senate bill proposed an unfair way to fix overpayments to these private Medicare plans.

The fix would have come at the expense of seniors living in areas with high medical costs, like my state of Florida. I got an amendment passed in committee that fixed the problem fairly.

Under this reconciliation bill, the president has proposed another way to rein in Medicare Advantage companies – one that upon close inspection also treats seniors fairly.

It puts companies on the hook for their performance. If they don’t provide quality service, their reimbursements are cut.

I appreciate the president’s leadership on this issue and the fact that he heard the concerns expressed by me and a number of other senators including Sens. Schumer and Wyden.

Now having said all this, I also have to say we’ve left something undone in the Senate bill that’s now law – and even in the reconciliation package.

I’m not happy that this legislation lets drug makers pretty much off the hook. You all know that over the past few years I’ve been voicing the concerns and fears of residents in my state about what’s been happening to their drug prices.

I also hear from folks who can’t afford their medications when they hit the prescription drug coverage gap known as the doughnut hole. They skimp on food, or split their pills or stop taking them altogether. And while this bill offers a discount to seniors in the doughnut hole, there’s nothing to keep drug companies from continuing to jack up their prices until that discount is meaningless.

I also hear from folks who are frustrated that folks in other countries are getting the very same drugs for much less they we pay here.

Mr. President, I had an amendment that would have required the drug industry to pay a fair share of the tab for health care reform. It required drug manufacturers to give the government price breaks on drugs for a lot of low-income seniors.

This would have saved us an estimated $106 billion which is more than enough to close the doughnut hole altogether, and then make a dent in offsetting the federal deficit.

I, for one, intend to come back here and revisit this.

Meantime, Mr. President, I want to say this reconciliation bill deepens and extends the promise of the health care reform bill that was signed into law this week.

I stood with the president when he put pen to paper yesterday. I think it’s great we’ve begun the process of health care reform.

It has been said by many folks in many different ways that – we are not put on earth for ourselves, but are placed here for each other.

Well, here we are – and, here we are debating legislation that stands to improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Therefore, despite its flaws, I will vote to pass this legislation.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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We must hold as many forums on this issue as possible.   We must open our doors and let people into our houses to talk about it.  We must buy everyone at the local coffee shop coffee and sit down and talk about it.   You see there is one side in campaign mode still here.  The side that likes to have big events that last a few minutes (47 to be exact) and run away.   We need to be ready to stay as long as possible and answer every question find every voter, and agree what needs to be done.

It’s great that Jen Wilson, our Director organized probably the first town hall on health care even before congress made it home on break, and I am sad to say that we have not seen our local congressman and congresswomen step up to the challenge yet, with no signs of doing so.

This is NOT a campaign, this IS a Country

Max Stewart, President Seminole County Young Professional Republicans

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We are hosting a town hall on the upcoming health care legislation on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at Eastmonte Civic Center, 830 Magnolia Dr, Altamonte Springs, FL. The meeting will begin promptly at 6:30pm.

Panelists include: Rick Scott, Founder and Chairman of Conservative for Patients’ Rights (CPR); State Representative D. Alan Hays, District 25; Kenneth J. Miller, MD, Anesthesiology; and Jason Brodeur, Procter & Gamble Account Executive, Healthcare for the Eastern United States.

Rick Scott founded Conservative for Patients’ Rights in February 2009 as a response to Obama’s health care plan. CPR believes that true health care reform centers on 4 pillars of Patients’ Rights: Choice, Competition, Accountability, and Personal Responsibility.

Rick, an attorney by trade has been in the health care industry since 1987 when he founded Colombia Hospital Corporation. In 1997, he left Colombia Hospital Corporation to start Richard Scott Investments, which has stakes in health care, manufacturing and technology companies. In 2001, he founded Solantic Corporation, which operates walk in urgent care centers.

State Representative Alan Hays is a Dentist by trade. He earned his DMD from the University of Florida in 1976. In 2004, he was elected to the State House of Representatives, and was re-elected in 2008. During that time he served as the Vice-Chair of the Insurance, Business, and Financial Affairs Policy Committee, and was a member of the Health and Family Policy Council. In addition, he served on the Full Appropriations Council on General Government & Health Care.

He is currently the Vice Chair of the Committee on Health Quality, a member of the Health Care Council and the Committee on Insurance.

His awards include the Florida Dental Association Representative of the Year 2006, Dr. Lewis Earle Legislative Service Award 2009, Florida Association of Health Plans Appreciation Award 2005, and Crown Council, Humanitarian Award for Dental Service in Third World Countries 1999.

He is a member of the Florida Medical Association Council on Legislation and the Dental Association.

Kenneth J. Miller, MD, is a Board Certified, private practice Anesthesiologist. From 1985-1987 he served as Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Winter Park Memorial Hospital. He received his MD in 1980 from Wake Forest University’s Bowman Gray School of Medicine. Three years later in 1983, he completed his Internship and Anesthesiology Residency at the University of Florida.

He is a member of the Florida Society of Anesthesiology, the American Medical Association, and the Florida Medical Association.

Miller believes: Doctors must set the standard of care, not the government; and patients must remain an equal partner in decisions that affect them.

Jason Brodeur is an Healthcare Account Executive for Procter & Gamble. His territory includes the Eastern United States. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Food and Resource Economics and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Florida. He recently earned a Executive Education Certificate, Negotiation and Decision Making from Harvard University.

Brodeur was appointed to the State of Florida Medicaid Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee by Governor Crist to adjudicate preferred drug list for the 2.2 million Medicaid recipients in Florida, representing over $1 billion in annual spending.

He is also on the Board of Directors of Community Based Care of Seminole County and is a member of the Florida Society of Health System Pharmacists and an active American Cancer Society Volunteer.

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CBS News reports that if you choose Obama’s government-run health plan, you may be able to keep your doctor, but your doctor might not want to keep you.

CBS sat down with Cato health care expert Michael C. Cannon to discuss why doctors might be reluctant to accept patients who are insured under the government plan.

From Cato Institute

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It started with the bailouts, then grew to a hostile takeover of the banking system and the auto industry. And the administration isn’t done there. They are planning a hostile takeover of the healthcare industry- which is equal to 1/7 of our economy.

This is not a war on the recession but a war on prosperity. With the spending out of control, Congress is coming up with new ways to tax us to pay for it. They have already raised taxes on tobacco and are considering taxing soda and junk food. But it doesn’t stop there. They are about to pass cap and trade which will be the biggest tax increase ever on the American public. In addition, they are talking about adding a Value Added Tax (VAT)- which is an additional Federal Sales Tax on goods and services.

Currently we have to work 120 days to pay what we owe in taxes. This year – if you started paying taxes on Jan 1- and you worked a standard 5 day work week you would have to work until June 17 to get to your 120 days. While literally 120 is about 1/3 of your year. It would take you about half the year to pay it.

If Congress adds anymore taxes to our already burdened public it would literally add months of more service to the government making us all slaves to the New Republic of Obama.

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Whitehouse 2 describes the purpose of their website as: “We’re imagining how the White House might work if it was run completely democratically by thousands of people on the internet. Get started by setting your priorities for the nation.”

When I created my account- I set my top 10 priorities for getting the country on the right track. 

1. Restore, uphold and defend the constitution.
2. Cut spending, reduce the national debt. 
3. Replace the federal income tax with the Fair Tax.
4. Build nuclear power plants. 
5. Drill for oil in our own country. 
6. Protect gun owners rights. 
7. Permanently end the death tax. 
8. Stop the bailouts and implement free market solutions. 
9. Let the banks that make bad loans go out of business. 
10. End corporate welfare. 

On February 18, not even one month since Obama was sworn in, I received an email that priority 2- Cut spending, reduce the national debt has failed. 

And boy did it fail, Obama and his big spending democrats- passed the largest bailout bill (that Obama refers to as stimulus) at over a trillion dollars- much of that in new spending for new government entitlements. I am proud of our Republican leaders stepping up to the plate on this one and not voting for this waste of taxpayer dollars. 

But that was just the beginning, today the congress approved another 400 billion in pork spending. Hey don’t forget that is on top of the 300 billion that Bush released for spending shortly before leaving office that has not even been spent yet. 

I am not surprised by this, Obama announced after his election that he was going to spend his way out of this. Every time it has been tried- it has failed. It didn’t work with Carter, or FDR and it won’t work now. 

But as Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson, reminded everyone at the convention last weekend, this is not the end- just the beginning. Brace yourself for more bailouts and big spending packages on the way. 

We are engaged in the war of ideas with the left, and while we do not have the majority at the moment, we  need to stick to our principles of personal liberty, personal accountability, and limited government. 

Soon the country will tire of big spending, and higher taxes and they will have to make a choice of whether to continue on the same path or elect new leadership. That first choice will come during the midterm elections in 2010. 

I know Bernake and other are optimistic that the economy will turn around later this year, but I am more cautious. I really can’t see how the policies of the left and their reckless spending, and more government oversight will get us out of this mess that they created. 

It was government intervention during the Carter presidency starting with the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to loan to people who couldn’t afford homes in the first place. That coupled with the mismanagement of Freddie and Fannie by the democrats- Chris Dodd and Barney Frank caused the housing bubble to burst and the economy to collapse. 

Now those same Democrats are in charge of cleaning up this mess? Sorry, I don’t have confidence in government to solve this. I do however, have confidence in the market to correct itself- but it can’t do that with government running interference for banks and companies that should fail. 

I’m with Rush- I hope Obama fails- if this is going to be his answer socialism and nationalism of banks. We cannot afford for him to succeed. That is why it is more important than ever for Republicans to stand up for their principles in this time of moral and ethical uncertainty.

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The best days of our party and our country lie in front of us, so lets make every day count!

Thank you again for all of your hard work, and I am excited about what the future holds for our party and our club. Invite a friend to the next YR meeting and lets continue building our club and our party.

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