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President Obama said a lot of great things that I really liked in his Health Care Marketing Conference last night (July 22, 2009). I am all for the reforms he talked about. You can watch it here on hulu. The problem is we have no idea what is actually in this health care reform bill.

Senator Tom Coburn has proposed an amendment in the Senate Health Committee that would require members of Congress to switch from their current health insurance plans to any government provided insurance scheme that's created as part of proposed health care legislation. They voted 12-11 for it. This means close to half of the Senators on the committee decided that the health care plan they are cooking up, which is good enough for us the people of our great country, is definately not good enough for them. Help us put the entire Congress on the spot.

One man's reassurances are nothing. We must demand that Congress reads this one before they vote on it in their usual blind fashion.

With something this important, President Obama should keep his promise and Allow five days of public comment before signing bills. Do you remember this? During his campaign he said this would reduce bills rushed through Congress, and to the president, before the public has the opportunity to review them. Obama said he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

So as I look back on his campain promises kept / compromised / borken it is very apparent that what he says is not necessarily how things will work out. The committees all get their own amendments into the bill, and who can forget the Obama Administration's AIG bonuses when everything was going down the drain. Perhaps President Obama really didn't know about the AIG bonuses, and in that case what better reason to have someone actually read a bill before passing it into law.

Senator Coburn really put the members of the Senate Health Committee on the spot.

Those senators who voted for switching to the new health insurance scheme being cooked up right now:

Democrats by Rank
Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT) - Committie Chair
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)

Republicans by Rank
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
John McCain (AZ)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK)
Pat Roberts (KS)

Government controlled health insurance that's good enough for you, apparently isn't good enough for these Senators:

Democrats by Rank
Tom Harkin (IA)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT) - self-admitted socialist
Sherrod Brown (OH)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay Hagan (NC)
Jeff Merkley (OR)
Al Franken (MN)

Republicans by Rank
Judd Gregg (NH)

If their plan is really so good, shouldn't members of Congress be subject to it too?

We need to do to the entire Congress what Senator Coburn did to the Senate Health Committee -- put them on the spot.

Please use DownsizeDC.org's health care campaign to send your Congressional employees another message opposing government controlled health care, and favoring free market reforms.

Use your personal comments to say the following (you can cut and paste if you want). . .

I approve of the Coburn amendment added to the Senate health care bill. Congress should have to switch their health insurance coverage to any so-called "public plan" they create for the American people. If you aren't willing to do that then you shouldn't be voting for this bill.