Mike Pence on Glen Meakem Show

Member Group : Glen Meakem

October 31 – November 1, 2009 – Make you voice heard: Vote!

Conservative Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana) joins me on the program this week with an update on "ObamaCare." The Liberal Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-California), released a new version of healthcare reform this week. This bill (H.R. 3962) is twice as bad-according to Mike-and twice as long as the one that the House considered and the American people rejected this past summer (H.R. 3200). This 1,990 page bill cuts Medicare benefits, increases taxes on everyone, increases healthcare premiums, forces many Americans onto new "public option" government insurance, and costs at least $1.1 trillion over ten years. Republicans cannot stop this bill on their own. They simply do not have the votes. But with the support of the American people, Mike believes we can still stop "PelosiCare" from becoming law.!

Mike encourages everyone to vote in this coming Tuesday’s election (November 3rd). Electing conservatives who are fiscally responsible is critical in our battle to take America back from the Democratic Party Liberals / Progressives who are currently running our government. The messages that we have been sending to Washington D.C. at Tea Parties and Townhall meetings across the country this year are important. But we MUST reinforce these messages at the ballot box next week if we want to permanently defeat "Cap and Trade," "ObamaCare," and "Union Card Check."!
The elections in Pennsylvania are very important because they will decide who controls the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for at least a decade to come. They will also determine the makeup of lower Pennsylvania courts for many years. Electing conservatives like Judge Joan Orie Melvin, Judge Judith Olson, Templeton Smith, Jr., Patricia McCullough, and Kevin Brobson to the courts will ensure that our rights and freedoms are protected. These candidates believe that the job of a judge is to interpret the law, not to create it, and they all identify themselves as strict constructionists.!
So please go to the polls on Tuesday. Take eligible family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues with you, AND VOTE for rational conservative candidates who will fight with us to preserve our great country. Remember, I have endorsed Joan Orie Melvin for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Judith Olson and Templeton Smith, Jr. for state Superior Court, and Patricia McCullough and Kevin Brobson for Common Pleas Court. Please vote! We must win on Tuesday!!
I also interview Dr. Tom Doyle, A Pittsburgh Doctor who specializes in Emergency Medicine and who wrote a recent article titled "Suck it up, America." The main point of Tom’s article is to emphasize that in our current healthcare system in which most people pay little or nothing to go to the doctor, we "misallocate care" and that the reforms currently being discussed by the liberals in Washington do not address this problem. In a single night at the ER, Tom has dealt with patients who have "smoked marijuana and got dizzy," were ‘stung by a bee," drank too much and now "have a hangover," and who "sat out in the sun and got a sunburn." These ailments hardly require an ER trip, and yet most of these people were brought to the hospital in an ambulance. Tom suggests that many people view health insurance as unlimited health care and this is unsustainable. To illustrate his point, Tom points out that homeowners do not use their home owner’s insurance to clean their gutters, and car owners do not use their auto insurance to change their oil. When it comes to cars and homes, people pay for normal maintenance, but then have insurance to cover any catastrophic risks – like losing the house in a fire or having a major car accident. By reporting on "over use" of health care – people going to the doctor when they should just go home and go to bed, drug seeking behavior on the part of patients, and other problems — Tom is reporting facts from the "front line." These are facts and problems that we do not hear about from politicians in Washington. While Tom is not offering detailed economic solutions, it is clear to him that American adults need to be much more responsible for their own healthcare, not less as President Obama and the Democrats would like. As I have said before, health care would function much better in America if 120 million individual households made their own decisions, as opposed to government bureaucracies making decisions for us. We could expand private health insurance coverage, reduce costs and continue to improve the quality of care with a series of market based reforms. And the first reform would be to end abusive medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors.!
I end the program by commenting on the economy. The bottom line is that the United States economy is in the middle of a short term recovery. This past quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of 3.5% — its best showing in two years. I know that some of this 3rd quarter growth is due to the shifting of economic activity by cash for clunkers and the first time homebuyers’ credit, both unsustainable programs. However, there are several reasons why I believe that this short-term recovery is real. Energy and food prices are much lower than they were in the summer of 2008, leaving more money in consumers’ pockets for other things. Much of the surplus inventory in the country has finally been sold off (natural inventory cycle) and new manufacturing is now underway. Everyone knows that massive tax increases are coming on January 1, 2011 (this Democratic Party tax increase is already on the books); so many people are working hard now to earn as much money and take as many capital gains and dividends as they can before then. And the market has been doing very well since March 9, when Senator Arlen Specter (still trying to woo Republicans before his switch to the Democratic Party) announced that he would vote against "Card Check." At that point, investors realized that the policies of the hard-left would not simply sail through Congress. Since then, Cap and Trade, Obama Care, and Union Card Check have all been delayed. The economy and the stock market love that these destructive policies have not been put in place.!
However, the long term future is more uncertain, because if these hard-left policies do become law (including the tax increases that are already on the books and the huge new tax increases embedded in both Obama Care and Cap and Trade), then a second and more severe recession is likely to occur. This brings me back to my earlier point. We must elect rational and conservative leaders and send them to our nation’s Capital, our state capitals, and our judicial benches. This coming Tuesday could be an important victory. Attending every tea party in the country can not replicate the power of your vote. So please go to the polls on Tuesday and vote to take back our future!
Sincerely,
Glen
p.s. Public protest is still important. There will be a major "Pink Slip Tea Party" on Sunday, November 1st at 2 pm on Flagstaff Hill, Schenley Park in Pittsburgh. I personally cannot attend this Tea Party (this would have been my seventh), but I strongly encourage you to attend to hear a strong line-up of speakers and express your outrage over the left-wing direction in which President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Arlen Specter, Bob Casey, Jack Murtha and others are taking our country. Let our political leaders and representatives know that if they jam Obama Care, Cap and Trade and other left-wing policies down our throats this fall, we will give them pink slips next year!