After President Obama’s speech last week, I wanted to take the opportunity to share my thoughts on his plan and update you on what I saw and heard from fellow Northern Californians during the August district work period.

Regarding his speech, I must say I’m concerned that President Obama is continuing his pattern of saying one thing and doing something different. And despite his claims of looking for a bipartisan solution, the President hasn’t held a meeting with House Republicans since April. Moreover, Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee offered 38 amendments during committee consideration to improve the bill, including an amendment to require members of Congress to enroll in the new government option and my amendment to ensure that new government-funded “comparative effectiveness research” will not be used to ration care. All of these common sense amendments were rejected, mostly along party lines. I believe that the President and Speaker Pelosi are rushing a government takeover of health care through Congress against the wishes of the American people. And I believe that the President’s speech shows that he’s not listening to the majority of Americans who have expressed strong concerns with this approach.

During the August district work period, I traveled around our Northern California Congressional District to talk to doctors, nurses, health care administrators, small business owners, and other citizens to share my thoughts on health care reform and better understand your opinions. In addition to meetings, we held three town halls and I was encouraged to see a record breaking number of our citizens taking an active role in our democracy. These meetings were productive, educational and had two things in common.

First, I heard loud and clear about people’s concerns with the unacceptable growth in government spending and the intrusion of government into Americans’ everyday lives. Secondly, the people I met with told me over and over that a government takeover of health care is not wanted nor is it necessary. Despite President Obama’s claims to the contrary, independent studies have shown that tens of millions of Americans stand to lose the health care they have now and would be forced into a government-run program that will explode our deficit. His plan would raise taxes by $828 billion and lower the quality of care.

We do need health care reform. We need to bring down costs and extend access to quality, affordable coverage. I’m supporting proposals that would help reform our system and have an immediate effect on costs. By implementing serious medical liability reform, we can save up to $200 billion per year. We can lower costs and extend access to affordable coverage. And we can do all of this without a government takeover, higher taxes on the American people or an unsustainable new entitlement.