Health Care Throwdown: Palin vs. Pelosi

Like many Americans, I’m very concerned about the efforts underway to rush through the 2,000 page Pelosi health care bill this weekend. Why the rush? That’s a lot of pages to read. Why not give everyone the chance to read it and debate it?

How much will this bill cost us? It’s unclear because the figures coming out of Washington keep changing – and always in the direction of costing more, not less. The latest numbers show it will cost more than a trillion dollars over the decade, but when has a government program ever come in on or under budget?

How will we pay for it? Taxes, of course – and not just on the “rich” (you know, the people who spur the economy by buying goods and running companies that employ people), but also on just about everyone, especially small businesses – the job-creating engine of our economy. One of the points of health care reform was to help small businesses with the cost, but this bill hurts them – and right at a time when so many Americans are out of work and need the jobs that small businesses produce.

What’s in this bill? The “death panel” provision is in it. Medicare cuts are in it. Coverage of illegal immigrants is in it. And federal funding for abortion is in it. I commend the many Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who are taking a principled stance to fight this.

I had a message for Speaker Pelosi in a speech I gave last night for the Wisconsin Right to Life – “please, please don’t break the ‘transparency promise’ by prohibiting at least a vote of your colleagues on funding abortion-on-demand.”

Speaker Pelosi has already broken many promises thus far in this “reform” exercise. She promised that this would be a bi-partisan effort, but the bill she’s pushing isn’t bi-partisan. She promised that the final version of the bill would be posted online 72 hours before it comes to a vote so that the American people could clearly see what’s in it and how we will pay for it. But she broke that promise too when she decided to rush the bill to a vote this weekend.

The speaker must be held accountable for her broken promises. Now is the time for Americans who believe in the free market and who believe that we need policies that promote job growth instead of job loss to say once and for all, “Enough!” Stand up and make your voices heard before it’s too late. Call and email your representatives and tell them to vote “no” on Pelosi’s train wreck of a health care bill, or else we will vote “no” to sending them back to Washington when we go to the polls in less than 12 months.

- Sarah Palin