Before he was elected to represent Indiana’s 8th congressional district, freshman Republican Rep. Larry Bucshon earned his medical degree and specialized in cardiothoracic (heart) surgery for more than a decade. His experience as a doctor gives him a clear insight into the impact of the Affordable Care Act legislation upheld by the Supreme Court in June, not just in his home state of Indiana but also across the country. He remains committed to health care reform, as he explained in this floor speech from early July, noting the difficulties associated with the implementation of the legislation:
It is ironic that this legislation is called ‘affordable,’ because in my home state of Indiana, it will be anything but affordable. What’s in it? How about 21 new taxes, most of which hit the middle class? The law has generated and will continue to generate thousands of pages of regulation to comply with, and establish taxpayer-subsidized exchanges that are predicted to be overwhelmed when employers start dropping their private policies for the employees. Paying the penalty will just be more cost effective for these employers.
Bucshon’s remedy includes repealing Obamacare. He joined 243 other House members who voted for repeal, and did not believe that the largely symbolic vote was a waste of time (the measure won’t move forward this session):
The ACA is a financial snowball rolling down the hill. We must repeal it before it’s too late. We need step-by-step, patient-centered health care reform that decreases the cost while maintaining the access to and quality of medical care in this country.
Rep. Bucshon will address The Bloggers Briefing today at noon ET with his thoughts on reforming health care. He will be joined by author and activist Phyllis Schlafly, who, along with co-author George Neumayr, has a new book, “No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.”
A cornerstone of conservative activism since the 1950s and founder of Eagle Forum, Schlafly’s new book target’s what the authors describe as the Obama administration’s assault on religious freedoms. Schlafly and Neumayr argue that the attacks on freedom of conscience—in health care policy at Catholic hospitals and with pro-life health care providers, elimination of the availability of Christian military chaplains and other religious elements from military hospitals and funerals, and the administration’s willingness to overlook religion when it is politically expedient—openly expose every American to the reduction of their First Amendment rights.
In place of religion, Obama’s “pervasive secularist policies” have at least one goal: the replacement of traditional religion with an all-powerful federal government:
“Obama views traditional religion as a temporary opiate for the poor, confused, and jobless — a drug that will dissipate as the federal government assumes more God-like powers, and his new secularist beliefs and policies gain adherents,” they write.
