Key Vote “No” On Motion to Proceed For a Government Takeover of the American Healthcare System

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Dear Senator:                                   

On behalf of hundreds of thousands of FreedomWorks members, I urge you to VOTE NO on the MOTION TO PROCEED with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) proposed takeover of the American healthcare system.  We will make sure your state knows that this vote is your vote for or against government-run healthcare.  Although Senator Reid has kept hidden for weeks his secret bill, the committee drafts from which he was working are flawed beyond repair with their individual mandate, job-destroying tax hikes on middle class families and businesses, provisions that lead to higher insurance premiums, shocking budget manipulation to hide the deficit increase this legislation will cause, massive new entitlement spending, government-run health plan, and nothing to reduce skyrocketing healthcare costs. 

The American people have turned out in overwhelming numbers to express their opposition to such destructive “solutions.”  From April 15th tea parties to summer town hall meetings to the massive 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington to the November 5th  rally at the Capitol, citizens have shown time and again that they will not stand for this government intrusion into their lives. Leading Democrats have said that they are willing to lose Democrat seats in 2010 by forcing moderates to vote for this outrageously unpopular bill. We will do everything we can to make sure your vote is well known in your district.  Make no mistake about it, when your constituents go to the voting booth, they WILL hold you accountable. 

With skyrocketing unemployment rates and the national deficit reaching levels previously unimaginable, Americans deserve common sense solutions that lower costs without piling debt onto future generations. Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that in order to fund similar reform plans, the federal government would have to spend nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years. Historically, such attempts to estimate the price of government programs have fallen woefully short of the actual cost of legislation. For example, in 1967 House Ways and Means analysts estimated Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990. They were wrong—by a staggering factor of 10. The actual spending in 1990 was $110 billion.  Are you about to vote on a $10 trillion bill? 

To pay for this colossal reform bill, this legislation saddles hundreds of billions of dollars in crippling new taxes upon the American people and includes major cuts in Medicare for seniors.  Worse still, the bill undoubtedly includes a federal mandate on health insurance which would dramatically alter the relationship between the government and individuals. Under such a mandate, citizens will be forced—at times against their will—to purchase insurance simply because they exist. Granting Congress the authority to mandate the purchase of any product abandons all limitations placed upon federal power. A mandate on insurance will fundamentally change our great nation. America will cease to be a country made up of free people who choose their own destiny and will become a country in which the government controls the destiny of individuals. This takes us down the road to serfdom. Such a shift is unacceptable, unconscionable and a complete perversion of the liberties on which our nation is founded.

We will SIGNIFICANTLY WEIGHT your vote on THE MOTION TO PROCEED as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2009. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the Jefferson Award, which recognizes members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe
President and CEO
FreedomWorks

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