Congressman Don Manzullo converse with a young couple after his McHenry County College Town Hall meeting on health care last summer.
The following press release has been received from 16th District Illinois Congressman Don Manzullo:
Manzullo: Majority of Americans Could Lose
Current Health Care Coverage
Under New Law Proposed federal regulations threaten coverage for 117 million Americans
WASHINGTON — Between 51 and 70 percent of Americans who receive employer-provided health care coverage could lose their plan by 2014 when the new health care law is fully implemented, several federal agencies stated today in proposed regulations.
Despite President Obama’s prior assurances that,
“If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan,”
the proposed regulations state that between 87 million and 117 million Americans could be forced to change health care plans because of new mandates.
The new health care law allowed existing health care plans to be “grandfathered” in with the new regulations as long as those plans met the standards of the new law.
However, the regulations unveiled this morning by the U.S. Depts. of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services state most employer-provided plans will not meet the new standards and will lose their protected “grandfather” status.
In addition, a new survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates health care premiums for Americans will increase an another 9 percent on average in 2011, reaffirming a similar cost hike estimate from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office earlier this year.
“This is outrageous.
“Despite the President’s earlier assurances that Americans could keep their health insurance if they wanted, his own Administration now says most Americans could lose their employer-paid plans once the new health care is fully implemented by 2014,”
Manzullo said.
“As I stated earlier this year, Americans did not deserve this disaster that threatens to come between them and their doctors.
“We need to go back in and replace it with bipartisan reforms to make health care more affordable and accessible to Americans without a government takeover that threatens their current coverage while putting even more Americans on the unemployment lines.”
As a new resident to McHenry (well, it’s been a year now), I was saddened when I found out who the Congressman is from our district. I follow politics extensively, especially when it involves folks from our state, and more specifically, the county I live.
If there was a team of dull, empty suit politician, Congressman Don Manzullo would be on the starting lineup. While I’ve only lived in a few towns in Illinois despite living in Illinois my whole life, I have never been so disappointed in a Congressman. I came from districts that have Democratic Congressmen, and while I didn’t always agree with them, I never felt like the towed the party line. They always were pushing what they felt were the best solutions. I don’t always care about the party you’re in, I care about what you’re going to do for the folks who live in my county, my state, my country.
What does Congressman Don Manzullo propose short of bashing the President in press release after press release? I’m all for being critical about the President, but I don’t believe he was elected to do that. What does he do day to day? His website says he has only sponsored 4 bills. 4 bills since 1993?
We need a middle of the road guy/girl who won’t tow the political line, who actually will help the 16th district instead of sending out press releases.
What disappoints me more is this blog (and maybe this my fault since I neglected to read the “About” section) is that I was hoping it would be my eyes and ears in McHenry.
Cal Skinner really does have some interesting posts, obviously cares deeply about what he is blogging about. It seems that this blog is also a sounding board for Republican-only politicians. Had this blog post contained the opinion of the author regarding the press release, this whole comment would be moot but this is just a copy/paste of his press release.
I publish press releases from politicians of all stripes.
I believe that citizens can learn a lot about elected officials and aspirants by reading what they want us to read.
If some candidates do not take the time to put me on their email lists, so be it.
I do enough original writing not to have time to go searching.
With over 2,000 readers a day, it is their loss.