Action-Alert Email

March 7, 2015

To all FFS Members,

Urgent Action Request

We are pleased to be able to offer you an important new tool in your urgent work to stop a dangerous constitutional convention.

Here is a link to an online copy of a just completed four-page “No Con-con Special Report.” [A link to this report can also be found on the “No New Con-con” Campaign Page.]

The online Special Report is recommended for emailing and urgent printing for moderate quality mailings. We are in the process of printing this Special Report in a format just like our monthly Action Reports. We expect to have hard-copies available for shipping by the middle of next week.

Thanks to a generous donation we are able to offer copies of this Special Report at bargain prices to promote wide distribution. Note that 25 copies are only $6 including shipping and 100 copies only $15 including shipping. So please be aggressive in your plans.

Regarding recommended actions, please see the end of this Special Report and our February 19 emailed Action Alert, plus what follows:

* * * * *

Already our members have been instrumental in defeating one measure on the floor of the Senate in Wyoming and also in Virginia.

On the other hand, we have suffered a heart-breaking loss in Utah, where the Utah Senate passed H.J.R. 7 by the narrow margin of 15 to 13 (it had already passed in the lower House). We will shortly email our Utah members an action request for rescission, while the issue is still hot.

But another piece of good news: On March 5th, HCR 3030 was defeated on the floor of the North Dakota House.

We expect to have a comprehensive report on the status of the threat in more states shortly. However, we would like to direct your attention to three states — North Dakota (to use the momentum of the recent victory to finish off five other bad bills), South Carolina (this is very urgent), and Oklahoma — in which urgent action is called for.  [Links were provided to support this request.]

Even if you don’t live in these three states, you may have friends that do who would like to help, and you can certainly email legislators in these states.

(In compiling the data for these states, we are getting enormous help from Freedom First Society member Andrew Carver in Oklahoma.)

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Background: 

President Obama has called health care “reform” his top legislative priority, insisting on draft legislation in the Senate Finance Committee by week’s end. His goal is to have legislation through both houses of Congress by the August recess and a final compromise bill to his desk in the fall.

The agitation for this socialist power grab dates back to the early part of the last century and followed the Fabian socialist strategies of permeation and gradualism. Early federal health “insurance” legislation was repeatedly voted down, but federal involvement finally gained a significant foothold during the Johnson administration with Medicare (1965).

Striving to appear as a champion of progress, President Obama has denounced critics of his plan as representing the “same Washington thinking that has ignored big challenges and put off tough decisions for decades,” blaming the health care predicament, not on government intervention, but on “that kind of small thinking.”

Fortunately, it won’t be easy for the president to obtain a consensus in Congress for a specific proposal, despite substantial Democratic majorities in both Houses. President Obama’s revolutionary actions have alarmed many Americans and emboldened Republican opposition, if not always in defense of correct principle. As a result, a number of congressional Democrats are undoubtedly concerned that supporting an expensive expansion of government control over health care may cost them their seats at the next election.

Recommended Actions:

• Government capture of health care is an incredibly subversive and long-standing socialist goal of the Insiders. Please read “Who Plans Our Laws,” a 1950 editorial in the Boston Herald by the Robert H.W. Welch, Jr. campaign, which examines this history.   Then share the link with others, adding your personalized comments.

• Contact Congress again to voice your opposition to any expansion of government’s involvement with our nation’s health care and urge your friends to do likewise.

General principles for effective letter writing and a link to congressional contact information can be found at: “What I Can Do” [Link to letter-writing page https://www.freedomfirstsociety.org/articles/pages/What-I-Can-Do.html]

More Talking Points:

• As far back as 1993, Dr. Edward Annis, past president of the AMA, identified the real problem with our health care “system” as government:

“All of the current problems in the medical marketplace — hyperinflation, millions of uninsured Americans, excessive administrative costs — carry a “MADE IN WASHINGTON” label. Yet the truth remains hidden to most Americans.” — Code Blue: Health Care in Crisis, Regnery Gateway, 1993

• “Any reforms must reduce costs and increase access — this will not be accomplished through a government takeover of our health care system.” — U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), July 13, 2009

• The federal government should be regarded as essentially bankrupt. The nation cannot afford another extremely expensive government entitlement program.

• The Constitution does not authorize any federal involvement in health care, let alone using federal money to bribe doctors and hospitals to create a unified national electronic health care records system.

• Draft legislation that includes a mandatory provision making every individual accountable to the federal government for maintaining personal health insurance, subject to federal penalties for violation, is unAmerican and unConstitutional.

• Proposals to use the federal government to force every business to offer health insurance to its employees, according to federal specifications, or “contribute” to a federal program are also unAmerican and unConstitutional. Moreover, they reflect a Big-brother mentality.

Our action alert last month on this topic, with its list of talking points, is posted on our website. Also, please see our “Say ‘No’ to Socialized Medicine” campaign page.

The Obama administration and socialists in Congress believe they can get away with another major step toward nationalizing America’s health care.

President Obama is pressing Congress to send him a comprehensive health care bill by October and is urging initial House and Senate passage prior to the August recess.  [See “Obama Urges Quick Action on Insurance” — NY Times, June 3, 2009]

In addition, trial balloons are being floated for making health care insurance mandatory for everyone — an outrageous power grab.  [See “Obama Open to a Mandate on Health Insurance”  — NY Times, June 4, 2009]

When the precise details of the plan are revealed there will likely be little time left to object, so the time to give direction to Congress is now.

Freedom First Society urges members and friends to contact Congress and voice their opposition to any expansion of government’s involvement with our nation’s health care.

General principles for effective letter writing and a link to congressional contact information can be found here.

In particular, an effective letter here needs to state clearly that the writer opposes any expansion of government’s involvement with our nation’s health care. The writer should then provide one or two reasons to support that position.

We list here several ideas for supporting points that may spark some thoughts of your own. It is better to use some of your own language so that your congressman and senators recognize that your letter expresses your own firm convictions.   At most offer only a couple of supporting points:

• Many Americans undoubted have a problem obtaining quality health care at an affordable cost. But it is because government is already too heavily involved in the system. Government involvement should be rolled back, not expanded.

• Doctors should be accountable to their patients not to federal bureaucrats.

• The Constitution does not authorize any federal involvement in health care and for good reason. Taking care of our medical needs is not why the Founders proposed a strictly limited federal government.

• Mandatory health insurance smacks of big brother.   President Obama wrote: “If we do end up with a system where people are responsible for their own insurance …” His clever wording tries to disguise a federal power grab. We already have a system where people are responsible for their health care. It’s called freedom.

• Americans should not be beholden to the federal government for access to health care nor should our doctors be forced to conform their treatments to bureaucratic standards.

• Let’s see how government does with managing GM before we entrust it with out vital health care system.

• More federal involvement will mean less quality and greater costs.   We do not need the federal government to manage our doctors and authorize treatments.

• Nations with universal government-sponsored health care necessarily offer poor service. America does not need overworked, underpaid doctors dispensing aspirin and long waiting lines for important medical procedures.

• Paying for routine health care expenses is not a proper role for insurance, which inevitably adds to the cost.

• The only real reform of the health-care business is to get the federal government out.

Also, constituent letters to Congress should end with a request or a firm statement as to what is expected. Example:

Do not compromise on this federal power grab. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I insist you vote no on any measure that would increase the federal government’s unconstitutional involvement in our nation’s health care.