Washington, Mar 19, 2010 - As the vote on health insurance reform approaches, I have become increasingly troubled by all the things this bill fails to do. Despite claims to the contrary, the Democrat’s bill fails to decrease health care costs, and instead increases costs in the form of higher premiums and exorbitant new taxes on families and businesses.

Furthermore, this bill does not prevent funds from going to illegal aliens or abortions. It fails to ensure the long-term solvency of Medicare and does nothing to protect doctors from malicious lawsuits. If this bill fails to do the many things that are so important to the American people, what does it do? It will addict the American people to socialism and make us dependent on the federal bureaucracy. It will raise taxes in the middle of a recession. It will create a new, trillion-dollar program when we can’t even afford the ones we have.

Unlike this government takeover being pushed by my Democratic colleagues, Republicans have offered solutions to fundamentally reform this nation’s health care system, instead of transforming healthcare into a bureaucratic nightmare. Unfortunately, Democrats have only paid lip service to the many ideas that both Republicans and Democrats could support. The only bipartisanship we’ve seen here is bipartisan opposition to the Democrat’s health care power play. They are scrambling for votes, even though they have a huge majority. This should tell you the radical nature of this legislation.

I will vote No and urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do the same. Let’s start over and put in place reforms that do not need backroom deals and arm twisting in order to pass.

In freedom,

Dana