Thanks for posting the Grayson quote and link, Bart! It gave me an idea for an article. We need more Dems like Grayson! I say Grayson for Senate 2012, strip Baucus of all his committee duties and replace him with Grayson.
In a speech on the House floor on Tuesday, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) stated that the Republican alternative health care proposals would force sick Americans to “die quickly”:
It’s my duty and pride to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America… It’s a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: don’t get sick. If you have insurance don’t get sick, if you don’t have insurance, don’t get sick; if you’re sick, don’t get sick. Just don’t get sick. …If you do get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly.
Read more here:
View the video clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usmvYOPfco
Apparently that statement created a ruckus in House, because several House Republicans such as Marsha Blackburn (TN), Patrick McHenry (NC) and Tom Price (GA) demanded an apology. It is no coincidence that these three are among some of the most extremist partisans in the obstructionist caucus seeking to derail health care reform.
Alan Grayson did apologize, but not to the House Republicans. He apologized to the dead:
According to [a Harvard] study,…44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance….That is more than ten times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq [and] who died in 9/11. But that was just once. This is every single year. That’s right. Every single year! Take a look at this and read it and weep….Let’s remember that we should care about people even after they are born…. Now I think we should do something about that and the democratic health care plan…makes health care affordable for those who can’t afford insurance and it saves these peoples lives. …So I call upon the Democratic members of the House, I call upon the Republican members of the House, I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America and for the sake of those dying people and their families. I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.
View it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoITVLWpKB8.
This is truly shocking! Not because House Republicans were insulted, but because there is a Democrat that actually shows some courage and tells it like it is. Thanks to Rep. Grayson for standing up for the vast majority of Americans who want to see a public option included in any health care reform bill.
For more info:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/30/grayson-gop-plan/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/alan-graysons-candor-hone_b_304742.html
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/study-45000-americans-die-each-year-for-lack-of-insurance/
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=27994