Has Rep. Castle Listened?
Jul 15th, 2009 by Timothy Pancoast
Note: This post is a follow up to my earlier report on the Kent County stop of Rep. Mike Castle’s listening tour.
I saw this video on YouTube, and it made me think that “We the People” may have had an impact on Rep. Mike Castle. Between, emails, letters, phone calls, comments at his listening tours, and the “Vote of NO Confidence” petition it is possible that we are starting to get through to him. He has a ways to go, and several of the things he says still bother me. However, he is actually starting to speak out against some of the bad policies being proposed about health care. At the end he even brings up the point that there hadn’t been enough time to read the bill. I hope he learned his lesson after failing to read the full Waxman/Markey bill, among others, before voting for them. It remains to be seen if he will follow his words with actions and votes. We can only hope he will listen to us and do right by us during his remaining time in office.
So, what do you think? Has Rep. Castle listened?
07-15-09 Rep. Castle Statement on Health Care Reform
For those who prefer, this press release from Rep. Castle’s office is the written statement that he made his remarks to Congress from. I have yet to find the text of the amendment he mentions, but I will add it to this article when and if I do.
Statement on H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”
Washington
- Statement of Michael N. CastleCommittee on Education and Labor
H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”
July 15, 2009
Mr. Chairman, While there is broad agreement on improving access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans, there is growing disagreement over achieving and paying for these goals.
As details of this legislation have trickled out, cost has eclipsed almost all other concerns. Frankly, I don’t understand how this Committee can consider adding another trillion dollars to the federal debt, while continuing to ignore the increasing entitlement programs. There may be politically charged proposals to alter Medicare and Medicaid but this is not true reform. Making tough decisions about entitlement programs is imperative for ensuring their solvency. These programs are kept afloat by deficit spending. As we debate this bill, our annual deficit has grown to $1.1 trillion.
Americans watching this debate must understand the costs, for families and the government, associated with U.S. health care. The U.S. spends over $2.2 trillion on health care, more than 16% of GDP, exceeding any other industrialized country. Projections suggest spending would rise to 25% of GDP in 2025, with no changes.
Reforms should be paid for by lowering costs within our health care system, not outside. Surtaxes on certain taxpayers which could end up harming small business owners and taxing employer sponsored health benefits do not seem prudent. Deficit neutral is not just a gimmicky-goal, it reflects the need for larger reform, and tough choices. System savings and focusing on prevention and chronic disease management are essential.
To understand the problems we face, we must drill down on the 46 million uninsured—only 26 million Americans were uninsured for an entire 2-year period; over 9 million uninsured are not US citizens; and 12 million uninsured Americans are eligible for public programs. There are over 100,000 uninsured people in the State of Delaware and 27,000 are already eligible for existing programs like Medicaid or S-CHIP, highlighting the need to ensure qualified Americans get enrolled.
I am not convinced that a public insurance option is the best immediate solution. Keeping the health insurance you have is a promise of President Obama, and while all Americans should have good choices, I remain concerned that a public plan, as currently envisioned, could compete unfairly, eroding coverage for 170 million working Americans.
I also have concerns about the employer mandate. Ramifications of requiring employers to provide health care for their employees or pay a tax could be that employers drop coverage altogether, or that the costs force them to make difficult choices regarding hiring and retention decisions.
In my home state of Delaware, I have heard stories of people struggling with cost and access—a non-profit with 15 employees is paying close to $100,000 annually to insure its employees instead of putting it toward carrying out its mission in the community; a recent college graduate with Type-1 diabetes, whose employer doesn’t offer health insurance, cannot purchase insurance because of a “pre-existing” condition; and a woman recently diagnosed with cancer is facing such high out of pocket costs that she simply cannot afford to continue with treatment. We must find solutions, so people can have peace of mind.
I support a system where every American can access health care, where individuals are not denied coverage based on preexisting conditions or put in financial peril because of out of pocket medical costs, but a one size fits all solution will not succeed. With universality we must retain choice, including the choice to keep our current coverage if we so choose. As we make the transition to providing this universal coverage—we must continue to rely on state/federal health programs, like SCHIP and Medicaid, and community health centers—and the safety nets on which the neediest Americans rely.
Prevention and wellness, and chronic disease management deserve increased attention and resources to encourage healthier lifestyles. I look forward to discussing the role of prevention in employer-sponsored plans during consideration of my amendment.
Finally, Americans must have confidence in what is put forth by the Congress. For this to transpire, the process must be more bipartisan than it has been. While there is momentum for meaningful reform, I remain disappointed with the direction the legislation currently takes. We must move forward with great care to balance the needs of all Americans in receiving access to the best and most affordable health care options.
Update: I haven’t found the actual text of the Castle amendment to H.R. 3200, however I did find this summary.
Castle’s amendment would specifically allow group health insurance providers to vary their premiums for plan participants by up to 50% based on participation in prevention/wellness programs. It would also create greater incentives for participation in prevention/wellness programs and allow employers to be more creative in providing health benefits.
Hello.
I would like to put a link to your site on my blog roll if you want to do the same for mine. It would be a good way to build up both of our readerships.
thank you.
I was outraged by Castle’s vote on cap & trade and pretty much gave up on him upholding any other conservative agendas. We can only hope that “We the People” will start to worry the career politicians that they better vote common sense, or lose support!
I don’t want to look at that man or hear a word he has to say ever again. Fool me once…fool me a gazillion times as that liar M. Castle has….the shame on me all to hell.
The other night, if any of you remember, and I’m gonna name names, at the GOP monthly meeting, some plant or another, named Fitzgerald is all I know, actually APOLOGIZED for some nasty things evidently shouted at Mike Castle during his talk at the Cheers center down this way.
First, there was no group of people officially representing the Republican party at that speech by that lying rep last name is Castle. His sycophant, that Rohmer woman and I don’t know how she can look herself in the mirror covering for that lying sack of no good like she does, was also there.
I don’t think any Republican whatsoever owed the lying Mike Castle an apology and I for one resent it being done so sneakily at a meeting of the Republican party.
So don’t trust a darn thing Castle says, I beg yon readers. He will lie and he will lie and he will smile and he will lie more. I don’t care who his opponent is next time, I will vote for the Democrat. I’d rather vote for a stupid liberal than a cheating, treasonous pubbie.
I’m just toying around with getting involved again with the pubs here in sussex county cause like so many I am disenchanted. And STILL that liar Castle won’t go away.
Just because some rude persons may have shouted some nastiness to Castle does NOT mean the Republican party should have to apologize to him.
This incident alone, and the lack of a backbone that makes Republican so famous across the fruited plains, even the ones here in Sussex county, makes me think again about the pubs.
I hope the Fitzgeralds, Rohmers and Castles of all sorts are reading this.
And no, I believe NOTHING Mike Castle will ever say again so long as he lives.
Just so you know.
Thanks for your comments. I totaly agree with you Ed, our elected officials tend to loose all their commons sence the moment we stop breathing down their necks. It is our job, and a much harder job than it used to be, to secure proper representation in Washington D.C. and in Dover. We slept on the job for far to long, and what is happening now is a painfull wake up call.
Pat, if there was to be any apology offered it should have been that Delawareans didn’t call out Rep. Castle sooner on what he was doing. I am very sorry that we didn’t stand up to Rep. Castle and our Senators sooner to remind them who they represent and who is the boss. Castle has been veering off track for a while now and he should have been stopped sooner, before he had a chance to do so much damage, culminating with his cap-n-trade vote.
Just as an aside I did not vote for Rep. Castle in the last election (I voted for my friend Mark Parks) and I do not intend to vote for him in any future elections. However, I will try to get the most I can out of him while he is still in office.
Well Tim, I DID vote for Mike Castle. I sadly, and with no pride, have a picture of my own fine self with Mr. Castle.
Well who doesn’t, I must guess.
See oncit upon a time I volunteered for the GOP here in Sussex county. Worked in the Georgetown office in fact. The powers that be at the time, and one right now….all very nice, extremely nice and personable persons….included one Dave Burris and current head of the sussex GOP, Ron Samms. Both very nice and extremely conscientious people. Let me state this right up front.
But like so many in the GOP, they were pressured by forces upstate I suspect, to …well to be a RINO. “Just one more election,” Dave B. told me at one GOP event. Ron Samms, what a nicer guy…how many afternoons did he and I spend discussing the issues. Ron, if he had a louder mouthpiece, is a very intelligent, very verbally astute fellow. He needs a bigger mouth is what I’m saying here.
But both of them fell into lockstep with the RINOs upstate and I, well I followed the lead of MY leaders, which were, at that time, Dave and now Ron.
Like you said, all of us were fooled by Mike Castle, yes we were, and for our loyalty he stopped and urinated upon our collective feet and said it was raining.
So I wonder the isolated desert along with my fellow conservatives and seek an oasis, some shade, some respite from Dems calling themselves Republicans and the likes of Mike Castle who betray us as they collect the booty from whatever bribery that Cap & Trade vote brought the man because as he likely figured, as I figure…heh, hey, it’s my last term…the voters of Delaware can’t hurt me anymore.
Or do we really think that a fellow who was smart enough to be around as long as Mike Castle, what with the governorship and a thousand years as Delaware’s only Representative is so stupid as to believe in global warming or that such a godawful tax on energy could possibly be good for the citizens of Delaware. Further, how many Delawarians, even the ones in Wilmington, would want Cap & Trade if they really understood it?
Mike Castle cheated us and he knows it. I just don’t know what that silly apology was all about at the Sussex GOP meeting but it was dumb and I don’t think it was an accident, no I do not.
I want desperately for at the least Sussex county to return to a strong conservative base. The Dems are making inroads and it’s only because the pubs got their finger up their butts, there’s no effective leader, that SCCOR group had John Atkins as a guest speaker of all people so forget them.
Everybody, every group of bodies, has a point. I believe that Mike Castle has struck that point.
If nothing else, I left that meeting, the very first one I attended for many, many months such was my discouragement, feeling like the pubs in Sussex are still puppets of Mike Castle.
Although I was quite impressed by some of our elected guys…the Wilsons, Gerald Hoecker.
If only we could get it all together.
PS…I love Matt Opaliski….love him. But what the hell is HE doing?
But like so many in the GOP, they were pressured by forces upstate I suspect, to …well to be a RINO
WEEEHAAAW! I smell me some civil warring coming on! Time to ‘git those jack a##es from the north! Round ‘em up, eh Pat?
WEEEEHAAAAW!
I must suppose that Smitty is being too clever by half. He’s so damn cute I am laughing from my living room out to my yard and back.
But it’s what they tell me! “They” being the powers that be…whoever I’m talking to. All I hear is “upstate”….Kent county, Newcastle county….the “state GOP”. THEY are the ones who decide…whatever they decide.
And I suspect there’s more than a little truth never mind Smitty’s damn cleverness that still has me guffawing off my kitchen typing stool.
Darn if I didn’t, oh about a year, year and a half ago, get an email from the state GOP. I paraphrase…”JOE BLOW AGREES TO JOIN REPUBLICAN PARTY.”
Joe Blow being some Dem on the Wilmington city council but the state GOP email has exclamation points and punctuation of great joy and yet, somehow I wasn’t all that joyous.
Further, and this will leave Smitty HEEHAWWING to eternity God Bless his pointy head, the head of the state GOP gives us a quote by Joe Blow and he says, hand to God I do not make this up…”I am still a Democrat”. In fact I came on this very Blog and complained about it. If a search is possible, seek it out.
So when we in Sussex complain about the RINOS in the north, we are NOT pulling this sentiment out of the air.
For why should we be filled with the joys of God’s heavenly angels because a DEMOCRAT has agreed to join the GOP? This is a concept I don’t get.
So HEEEHAW your own self Smitty you clever fellow you.
The pubs here in Sussex county are a long way from Conservatives as I see it but one of the elected fellows told me that two of the northern pubs actually went to Markell, abandoned the GOP caucus in the process, and tried to strike their own budget deal. Check it out.
We don’t make this stuff up out of thin air but hey, I sure enjoyed the guffaws and laughter. Keep them coming.
Understand though, that I am really serious here and I’m not going to get involved with silliness.
Castle listens…he just doesn’t hear.
One of the gang of sellouts in Cap & Enslave was Republican Representative Kirk of Cook County. He was also one of the few nominal Republicans who did not sign the Heller brief that was circulated by VP Cheney. This creep also co-sponsored that ‘cyberbullying’ bill that is an attack on the First Amendment. It is a bit of legislative overkill that uses a ‘once in a blue moon’ outrage as a justification for incrementally promoting a radical agenda.
Who else in the nominal GOP ranks will sign onto this measure?
No person with contempt for the Constitution is fit for public office.
“No person with contempt for the Constitution is fit for public office.”
Well Art that rules out a sizable chunk our General Assembly and most of the House and Senate, not to mention the executive branches at both the state and federal level. The best you can say for a lot of them is that they treat the state and federal Constitutions like friendly suggestions that we are to follow when we have the time and it isn’t too much of an inconvenience.