IL-14: Catalina Lauf Commends Mark Green, Jim Oberweis FD Available for Public View, Underwood Introduces More Mandates on Health Care

H.R. 3525 Motion to Recommit

Congressman Mark Green (R, TN)

Last night, Republican congressional candidate Catalina Lauf tweeted how Congressman Mark Green (R, TN) attempted to prioritize health care of veterans over the health care of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. As published in yesterday’s article, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood’s sponsored H.R. 3525 passed the House on a nearly straight party-line vote.

Prior to final passage of Underwood’s legislation, a Motion to Recommit (MTR) with instructions was filed to amend Underwood’s legislation with an implementation date of September 30, 2027, eight years from now. The MTR sponsor in Thursday afternoon’s session was Congressman Green, an M.D. and decorated military veteran who was part of the capture and questioning of Saddam Hussein.

Why such a late implementation date 8 years into the future? During his speech on the House floor supporting the MTR, Green said the following about Underwood’s legislation and answered the question about a 2027 implementation date:

Lauren Underwood

“I will never forget watching the flag-draped coffin of a fellow Army Ranger carried into the back of a C-17 in Bagram, Afghanistan, for his last trip home. Out veterans deserve everything that we can give them.

“However, in the past few years, despite improvements in the V.A. Electronic Health Records System, problems and delays still remain. For example, the very benefits that Congresswoman Underwood in this bill advances for illegal aliens flooding across our southern border our veterans don’t have those benefits.

“Let me say that again. This bill, without the amendment I’m asking this body to consider, advances health care services to illegal aliens before it does our American heroes. The V.A. secretary testified before Congress that it will take his department 10 years to fully deploy this new system.

“I have the deployment schedule for the V.A. from their website.”

Congressman Green wraps up his speech with the following concerning the comparison of Underwood’s legislation mandating the electronic health records system to be implemented within 90 days of becoming law, with the VA secretary’s sworn testimony stating it could not be fully implemented for the VA until 2027:

“Without my amendment we’re going to give it to illegal aliens within 90 days.

“Mr. Speaker, these are the same men and women who when they raised their right hand and they took that oath, wrote a blank check for America. For every person in this room.

“That was cashable, redeemable all the way up until their life, their very life.

“I think our constituents across this great country would find it appalling that we’re about to give this health records system to illegal immigrants before our veterans receive it.

“All this amendment does is ensure that our veterans get this service first.

“If you vote against this motion to recommit, you are giving an electronic health medical record to illegal aliens before our veterans.”

Quotes from C-SPAN transcript of uncorrected closed captioning

A video clip of the entire MTR from introduction through debate is available through the following link. It’s only 12 minutes and is a very good video to watch:

H.R. 3525 MTR video link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4819810/hr-3525-mtr-092619

After Congressman Green finishes, Congresswoman Underwood offered rebuttal, and the debate ended with a blustery speech by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD). The vote was taken and the results grid is below:

Source: California Target Book

While there was some blue among the Republicans voting in favor of the MTR, it still went down in defeat by a 213-202 vote, with 16 Democrats voting with the Republicans, and one Republican and the independent voting against the MTR. All but 2 of the Democrats who voted for the MTR voted for final passage of H.R. 3525.

OBSERVATIONS:

  • Underwood’s rebuttal speech was, in my opinion very condescending and exposed Underwood to not listening to the credible objections from Republicans going back to mid July at the Homeland Security Committee’s Markup session. The VA issues came up then (see the committee’s video in yesterday’s article on H.R. 3525). Given how Underwood likes to tout medical professionals and herself being a nurse, Congressman Green is an M.D. and she showed no respect to his medical credentials, nor the evidence provided to him from the secretary of Veterans Affairs.
  • Catalina Lauf quickly responding to what happened Thursday afternoon during House floor debate. I did not cover the MTR, and she taught me I better start covering more than the final passage. It’s one thing to respond to the impeachment inquiry and that was the big news this week. But Lauf showed Congress is still passing legislation, too.

Jim Oberweis FD Available for Public View

Jim Oberweis, candidate for IL-14, filed his Financial Disclosure (FD) statement on August 28. It became available for public viewing on the House Clerk’s site on September 25, within the 30 days required by federal law.

By clicking the “clerk.house.gov” link in the Twitter window below calls up Oberweis’ FD for your review. All of the candidates’ FDs are interesting reads and will be of help for discerning voters to read to help get to know the candidates.

OBSERVATION: McHenry County Blog assisted the Oberweis campaign in order to cooperate to help readers on the blog be fully informed about his candidacy. Mr. Oberweis thanked McHenry County Blog for assistance provided to his campaign concerning the FD and we thank him and his campaign for their cooperation.

Underwood Introduces Legislation for More Mandates for Health Care

Congresswoman Lauren Underwood introduced H.R. 4457 on Tuesday. In spite of its noble intentions, the truth is, if this legislation became law, it would force insurance companies to raise premiums in order to pay for the mandate to cover out-of-pocket expenses on a patient basis.

The two tweets were published this past week touting the introduction of her legislation:




The link to read H.R. 4457 is below.


Comments

IL-14: Catalina Lauf Commends Mark Green, Jim Oberweis FD Available for Public View, Underwood Introduces More Mandates on Health Care — 8 Comments

  1. “Veterans come first?”

    This little piece of fluff likes to throw out buzz words that make no sense.

    No one is re-routing money for veterans to help immigrants.

    Actually, that repugnant stain in history that we call Trump has re-routed money from the military to build his silly-ass wall.

    Christina Lauf should go back to being a dog-walker.

  2. Everyone knows that the V.A. already has the EHR.

    The republican rebuttals was on the modernization of the system not implementation.

    Underwood probably supports the modernizatIon of the EHR as the V.A. committee has always worked to improve the health of veterans.

  3. Actually, money used for the wall from military serves the military purpose of stopping an invasion.

    Silly-a people are those rich people, such as many Democrats, who live behind walls and fences in gated communities.

  4. Immigrants come FIRST. Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…

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