Garrett 01 14 10 Re Health Care [Re Garrett 'Newsletter' 01 13]

Congressman,
If you would care to allow facts to change your mind, you might note that a large majority of New Jersey residents
favor health reform as noted in the latest Rutgers Eagleton poll, 01 14 09:
http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/news-releases/2009/12/rutgers-eagleton-pol-20091202

You might also note that including in your most recent newsletter [Jan 13] the results of a poll asking the public’s opinion of how President Obama handled health care rather than about whether or not people want health care gives the appearance of your being deceptive. You could just as easily cited, and you should have, the relevant portion of the CBS poll which pointed out that most Americans, almost 65% in fact, felt that the health care reform bill is not going far enough, that it needs to have a public option and that it needs to do more to rein in the insurance corporations.

Although your current deception/ misconception pales in comparison with one of your recent newsletters [11 05 09] in which you asserted numbers of false “facts,” distortions, misrepresentations, and fabrications — the equivalent of death panels, government “takeovers,” interference with “free” markets, “job killing” “taxes,” etc, etc, etc, this continued pattern of misrepresentation is in my view, unacceptable in an elected official.

jim crawford
Westwood

Garrett 11 06 09 Re HR 3962

Congressman Scott Garret’s current email message to constituents re HR 3962 commits an indiscretion of substantial proportion because it is filled with inaccuracy, distortion, and blatant, unrestrained cozenage, all of which will work to the detriment of the citizens of the 5th District. In his email, he makes a number of claims that are simply untrue— misstatements of fact, distortions of text, spurious assertions, and outright prevarication.

To wit, his claim that people will be forced to “ to purchase coverage through the federal government” is untrue. People and businesses will be purchasing health insurance through exchanges, marketplaces regulated by laws passed by our elected government.

He claims also that the health bill “requires the use of federal dollars to fund abortions,” a claim that as the Congressman well knows, or should, has been under intense discussion this week in the Congress. Perhaps he should pay more attention. Little chance exists that our tax money will be funding abortions, as he also should know.

His protestation that “Section 202(c) prohibits the sale of private individual health insurance policies, beginning in 2013, forcing individuals to purchase coverage through the federal government” is another outright and pernicious misstatement of fact.

He states too that Section 223 establishes a “board of federal bureaucrats” which will “dictate the health plans that all individuals must purchase.” This in fact is not the case; this board is to be composed of “a panel of medical and other experts,” including the Surgeon General and “Nine members who are not Federal employees or officers.” This section makes no such “dictation.” He repeats the misstatement of fact about abortion.

He claims too, [Section 321] that the Lewin Group, which he cites, is “ non-partisan,” when in truth it is “wholly owned by United Health Group, one of the nation’s largest insurers” [Washington Post 07 29 09]. The language in this section of the bill and in the ones above seem so straightforward and so simple to understand as to lead one to the conclusion that his interpretations of them can be classified only as lies.
He several times refers to the health bill as “bureaucrat-approved” [Sec 501, 512], which it is not, being in fact a bill passed by an elected Congress; claims that a tax on employers who choose not to provide health insurance for their employees is a “tax on jobs”, when it is no such thing. Misquotes and distorts a study by a Republican Harvard economics professor Kate Baicker, etc, etc, etc.
The rest of his email follows the same pattern: misstatements followed by distortions followed by fabrications —- inexcusable in any business context, unforgivable in a political representative. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to do what he has done here — distort and deliberately misinterpret the facts. He is also not entitled to be as out of touch with his constituents as he apparently is.
When Joe Biden miscited his personal history during the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, he withdrew from the race; when Nixon was caught lying, he was forced to resign or be impeached. After a U-2 flight over the USSR was shot down in 1960, Eisenhower, caught in a lie, told the truth and apologized to the American people, as Kennedy did after the Cuban invasion fiasco, and Clinton did after his lies during the Lewinsky affair. The question now is, “What is Congressman Garrett going to do?”
jim crawford Westwood NJ

TO GARRETT: Re. [07 21 09], “Decreasing Health Care Costs For Your Family,”

Congressman Garrett,

  1/ In your letter re. health care reform [07 21 09], “Decreasing Health Care Costs For Your Family,” you do not propose any means by which every individual in the USA would be covered, which is one of the major goals of health care reform. You simply write about making health care “more affordable” and indicate that some reforms in the private markets would accomplish the desired objectives. Since TR almost a century ago first included a health care amendment in the program of a national political party, the private market has consistently failed in the most abject manner possible to provide adequate health care for the American people.

2/ All the negative articles that you cite and provide links to aside, nowhere do you as a representative indicate that you are willing to sit down and negotiate spending restraints or other issues in these proposals. Nor do I see any viable alternative health plan emanating from either your office or from the Republicon leadership in either the Senate or the House. The entirety of your position is, in other words, simply a negation of any effort to realistically reform American health care.

3/ We should not, you say, try to institute any new government health care programs until we fix existing problems with “Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Social Security.” As if to say that we should not have introduced any new bombers in World War II until we fixed any problems that the B17 might have had, a faulty logical process if I ever heard one.

4/ “Democrats are pushing for a government takeover of health care” you assert, a clever turn of phrase that makes your statement sound as though ALL Democrats were promoting a single payer system, a situation that is not at all the case as you well know.

5/ Nice trick too, including a series of “articles” that seem to indicate insurmountable opposition to new health care proposals when what actually is required is that the proposals be modified, a process in which you indicate no willingness to help either, in a typical right wing attitude toward every proposal designed to have a democratically elected government improve the lives of its citizens. Just say “no” in as many ways as possible is your basic position.

6/ So, in other words, you’re going to stall in order to delay health care reform for as long as possible and then vote “no” on a health care proposal that the overwhelming majority of your constituents support and which the overwhelming majority of the American people want.

IT’S NOT ENOUGH, CONGRESSMAN.

jim crawford
Westwood

Why doesn’t our side do more??

James Ankrom

Viki Papazian
201 767-2189