Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford gave a speech today at the opening of the 2013 Florida legislative session. Below are his personal views on the subject of whether Florida should accept the Medicare expansion that is part of Obamacare. His words are both true and painful.

Perhaps one of the most challenging questions we’ll face this Session is whether we should expand Medicaid.

Let me start by saying, I know this is a very difficult issue.

Passions will run high and principles will clash within this chamber.

On the matter of expansion, allow me to depart from the message of the House for a moment, and speak to you about my personal views.

First of all, let me say, I believe in the safety net.

My family has benefited from the safety net.

As many of you know, I grew up in a family of nine children. My father was self-employed and did the best he could to provide for us but we never had health insurance. We could never afford health insurance.

My baby brother Peter was diagnosed with cancer when he was 13 months old. He was in and out of the hospital for seven months.

My Mom and Dad basically lived at the Ronald McDonald House – because they couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel.

After two major surgeries, Peter lost his battle with cancer and my father found himself with a mountain of medical bills that he could never afford to pay.

It was the safety net that picked my father up.

It was the safety net that picked my family up.

I will continue to believe in – and fight for – a strong safety net for Florida.

Because the measure of our state is not how well we take care of the rich, but how well we take care of the sickest and weakest among us.

But Members, I also firmly believe that a government that grows too big, becomes too intrusive, and fosters too much dependency will threaten our liberty, our freedom and our prosperity.

Members — I am opposed to Medicaid expansion because I believe it crosses the line of the proper role of government

I believe it forces Florida to expand a broken system that we have been battling Washington to fix, and I believe it will ultimately drive up the cost of health care.
This inflexible plan, thrust upon us by the federal government, is not aimed at strengthening the safety net.

It pushes a social ideology at the expense of our future.

The trouble with this social experiment is that it is destined for failure.

The notion that we’re going to receive free money from the federal government is laughable.

This is the same federal government that has not passed a budget in nearly four years.

This is the same federal government that spends 1.2 trillion dollars more than it takes in in every year.

Florida is being tempted with empty promises to comply with policies we would never pay for
if we knew the true cost.

They’re trying to buy off states one by one.

I am not buying it. Florida should not buy it.

Because their failure to deliver has such high stakes for Floridians.

If they get this wrong, we are on the hook.

It would be far easier for me, and for us, to simply say yes to the so called “free money,” enjoy the accolades for a few years, and leave office knowing that the true cost will come
due long after we’re gone.

It’s not right, and it’s not what I signed up for.

Florida’s governor disagrees, seeing a moral imperative to provide expanded Medicare so long as it is fully subsidized by the Federal government (borrowing even more against our children’s future).

Mr. Obama and the Democrats are trying to force us all to expand health care subsidies to the exclusion of economic opportunity and growth while we increase dependency and bankrupt the country.

Will Weatherford is right and we need to tell our congressional representatives to de-fund Obamacare now.

You can send Will a thank-you here.

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

I submitted my public comment on this issue as included below and encourage all concerned to do the same. Click here to offer your comments on these proposed regulations.

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February 8, 2013

TO: US Department of Health and Human Services

I offer the following as a public comment concerning RIN 0938-AR42: Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act.

The proposed regulations attempt to selectively address faith and conscience based objections to a government mandate that organizations offering health insurance plans be required to pay for free contraceptives for their female employees.

After considering the regulations and the government’s arguments in support of a mandate any reasoned citizen might ask whether those praying at the altar of government should be entitled under our Constitution to impose their will upon those who pray at a religious altar, or upon those unaffiliated with a recognized religion having conscientious objections to paying to socialize the cost of female contraception.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Deputy Director of Policy and Regulation at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services held a conference call on February 1, 2013 to announce revised proposed rules for socializing the cost of female contraceptives as those rules impact religious organizations.

Of particular note in the conference call was a question by an NPR reporter and the response of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. The reporter asks whether it isn’t really the insurance companies who will be paying the cost of free contraceptives given to employees of religious organizations who request such coverage under the proposed rules, or won’t the Federal government really be paying the cost for those employees under self-funded health insurance plans offered by religious organizations?

In response, Ms. Brooks-LaSure notes that since “studies have shown” overall health costs are reduced when female contraceptives are provided free, insurance companies will realize an overall cost savings by paying for those costs. If this were true, in an open and competitive market, insurance companies would voluntarily include free contraceptives within coverages as doing so will save both the companies and the employees money while improving health care, and there would be no need for us to pay Ms. Brooks-LaSure’s salary let alone have to deal with a new 80 page proposed rule or any free contraception mandate at all. If free contraceptives actually reduce overall health care costs as claimed by the government, a competitive insurance industry would be foolish not to offer such coverage in all health plans, and those women declining free contraceptives would then rationally be subject to a higher, rather than lower premium payment.

Again, in response to the question as directed to self-insured organizations, Ms. Brooks-LaSure notes that the user fees under the Affordable Care Act paid by health plan administrators would be credited for the cost of providing the contraceptive coverage. While Ms. Brooks-LaSure doesn’t think that means the Federal government is paying for that credit, the reality is that we would be paying, as user fees supporting the government’s over site of Obamacare are reduced through such credits, which dollars will necessarily be made up from another Federal bucket.

The emptiness of the government’s reasoning in proposing religious exceptions reveals that those same flaws exist in the reasoning underlying socialization of the cost of female reproductive health services in the first place. What we really have here are competing belief systems, the Obama administration/HHS versus personally held religious beliefs and individual conscientious objections. No religion is entitled to impose its moral views on American citizens and no government is entitled to impose its moral views on any religion or individual.

The American solution to increasing access to female contraception is to make such products available over-the-counter and to provide Federal regulation requiring state laws to assure open competition in the health insurance markets.

Regulations such as those proposed here legitimately incite the resentment of millions of Americans who cherish their personal freedoms. Such regulations are completely unnecessary to the end of increasing access to female contraception and constitute an unacceptable intrusion into our private lives and pocketbooks, and an unacceptable challenge to our right to act in ways consistent with our individual moral beliefs.

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Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org