The Race to Repeal ObamaCare … Even on Crutches
Running for U.S. Congress, people often ask me how hard is it to kick a 16-year incumbent like Lloyd Doggett out of office.
How about hard enough to break a foot?
That’s exactly what happened to me on September 23, when I took a tumble in a parking lot at work. I then proceeded to finish my shift at the ER, seeing patients while unaware anything was broken, before finally getting X-rays … and becoming a patient myself. The good news? I broke my left foot, and thanks to the last four years of Democrat policies, we all know everything on the Left is broken anyway.
Oddly enough, my accident occurred the same week that ObamaCare turned six months old. Coincidence? For the next six weeks I get to wear a painful reminder of the damage the Democrats’ 2,500 page monstrosity is doing to our health care system. If only we could repeal ObamaCare in such a short time.
How is ObamaCare affecting me as a patient? It means the plate and pins surgically placed in my foot now cost more thanks to tax hikes on medical manufacturers. The same goes for the monitors and instruments used during surgery, as well as the crutches I’m now using.
The fact is the burden of a broken foot is nothing compared to the drag ObamaCare is now, and will increasingly be, on our economy — not to mention the debt it saddles our children and grandchildren with. We know Speaker Pelosi and crew sold the health care nationalization ploy as “deficit neutral,” legis-speak for “no added cost.” But former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag corrected that whopper for the record. Already ObamaCare is costing employees their current coverage, causing corporations like McDonald’s to lobby federal bureaucrats for compliance waivers (many of which have been granted, and seemingly arbitrarily), and forcing insurance premiums through the roof.
Lloyd Doggett, my Democratic opponent in TX-25, championed this legislation, claiming he not only read the bill, he helped write it. Never has pride in authorship been so ardent. He was one of three deciding votes to join Speaker Pelosi in pushing ObamaCare through the U.S. House despite strong opposition by the people. But these days, Mr. Doggett is keeping his key ObamaCare role silent as the election fast approaches and the flaws of the legislation become more evident. You can hardly blame him. I’d rather stand on my broken foot than Lloyd Doggett’s record.
They do love to talk about abortion, don’t they? A young man I saw in church this morning was wearing a t-shirt quoting Ronald Reagan, “I’ve noticed that everyone who supports abortion has already been born.”
Wearing a political t-shirt in church? Yes, they certainly do love to talk about abortion.
Emma, abortion is not a “political” issue. It is an assault against the dignity of humanity. A church is probably the most appropriate place in the world to wear a pro-life shirt.
She put her foot so deep up her opponent’s backside, that it broke off. ;D
Last I heard, there are about 12 M.D.’s in Congress and the Senate. They are ALL Republicans.
“What?!? Really? I thought the Republican Party was the party of the rubes and rednecks and “bitter-clingers”. All the really smart people are Democrats, right?”
Oh, and the accountants and economists are Republican too.
But who writes and passes Obamacare? Dems. Who opposed it? Pubs. You know, the Doctors and Accountants and Economists. Just sayin’.
Here’s hoping the good Doctor wins. Hope she is running ads which speak for themselves: Video of her opponent bragging about his role. No editorializing necessary. “If you like it, vote for him. If not, vote for me.”
You go girl!!! Dr. Campbell, I hope an election night victory takes the sting out of that broken foot. You are running on the same platform me and millions of other Americans are screaming for in this nation. What is different this year is that Republicans AND Democrats are supporting the same issues. Some of the latest polls I’ve seen show that almost 70% of Americans agree with the issues supported by Tea Party activists, which are the same issues you are supporting. So hang in there and simply make your opponent “stand” on his record. If that’s all he’s got, he’s finished. Good luck to you. I only wish I lived in Texas to vote for you.
There seems to be quite a few doctors running for office. I can not think
of a group more trusted.
In Michigan we have a doctor, Rob Steele M.D., http://www.robsteeleforcongress.com/
who we hope to see send John Dingle D-Mi. home. Dingle has held this office since 1954.
Dingle is the definition of “entrenched” politician.
Another anti-choice Christianist? No thanks. I’ll go with the progressive and FDR-way.
So, you don’t mind paying for some one else’s abortion? Sending tax dollars
to another country in the name of population/birth control? Do you support China’s anti-choice policy?
There are folks who are pro-choice but do not want to pay for an abortion
with their tax dollars.
Crusader, the babies have no choice. They are murdered like the Jews in the Holocaust. They are discriminated against like the Japanese in FDR’s America. American progressives were the inspiration for Hitler’s death camps.
As Mark Levin would say, “You are to me what dog crap is to my sneeker.”
Unfortunately you have an anti-choice mother.
After researching at HealthCare.gov how ObamaCare will “help” someone with pre-existing conditions, this is what I found under Benefits and Premium rates:
-I have to be uninsured for at least 6 months (with proof)
-I have to pay $2500 annual deductible
-I have to pay $25 copay for each dr visit
-I have to pay $320-$570 per month premium if I’m 50 yrs old and based on the state I live in
That adds up to costly “affordable” healthcare.
Dr. Campbell understands why this bill needs to be repealed.
I’m glad you wrote this article. I’m in Austin, I’ve seen your signs, but I didn’t know who you were, or what you were running on. Honestly, when someone has Dr in their name, I assume it’s for the school board, and it’s someone from the education union. So, yeah, now you have my vote. Glad to do it. Both the sposo and I had called Doggett’s office about obamacare, sposo went to doggett speeches, asking him to not vote for it- doggett’s office told us that most people in Austin were against it, but he was going to vote for it. Crazy.
ari
WE NEED TERM LIMITS!!! Thank you Dr. Donna for doing all you can to kick the bums out….sorry about your foot!
We have always had term limits available to us. All we need to do is vote them out. The problem is not that we don’t have a term limit law, it is that we don’t exercise the term limit option that has always been available to us. It is definitely well past time to exercise that option and clean house on Nov 2nd.
Dr. Campbell,
I have heard nothing but good things about you since moving to Austin. Conversely, I’ve seen and heard nothing but anti-Texas behavior from Congressman Doggett-including his support of a bill that specifically EXCLUDED Texas!
My only regret is that I am not in your district and can therefore not cast my vote for you.
Margaret
So far north in Austin it’s almost Pflugerville.
Someone in the U.S. Congress that takes credit for reading and writing the Obamacare mess? Then Congressman Doggett must know that he also added Section 6402 where a doctor, nurse, hospital or anyone associated with the medical profession can be found guilty by any FED prosecutor (or solicitor general leap frogging to supreme justice), if they take any renumeration for referrals! Could that be a round of golf or lunch? And they must prove their innocence according to 6402. What happened to due process? When a Congressman takes credit for this you can only hope that someday someone judges him that same way. But he probably is counting on going to heaven.
I don’t usually support Dems or Republicans, but I honestly can’t stomach Lloyd’s lectures and anti-democracy votes any longer. Dr. Campbell, you seem to have the right attitude and the right stance on the Constitution. Obamacare is the beginning of the end of whatever individual liberties the government hasn’t taken away already. Right now, you’ve got my vote, and it’s been a long time since I didn’t vote for the libertarian. He’s a good man, but I’m afraid with no chance to win. Hope the leg heals.
Doggett, you’ve made your millions in “public service.” Now go home before the rest of us go broke.
My dad recently went to a local community hospital after getting some dizzy spells. They ran some tests, kept him 3 nights for observation, and then let him go home after he felt better even though they never figured out what caused the problem in the first place. Cost for that bed rest? $18,000. Granted that he only had to pay $300 of that, but still.
That encapsulates the state of our health care system at the moment and so far the Republicans have not come up with *any* sane alternative to Obama’s plan (meaning that it’s something based on actual research rather than rubbish talking points gathered up from the right wing media.) It’s all too easy to hurl insults from the sidelines, but if you are going to play in the game, you better be more than just all talk.
BC,
You just answered your own question. The reason health care costs so much is because the free market has been taken out of the equation. They charge whatever they want at the hospital because they can. Your dad didn’t have to pay for it (at least not directly – it’s probably adjusted for in his income and premium hikes for everyone). Unattached from supply and demand, the price soars. You want to talk about sanity? Obamacare is insane! It taxes medical devices and employers and raises the cost of everything. Already we are seeing insurance premiums go through the roof and your party is running away from the very legislation they supported.
Some insurance companies are getting out of offering certain types of coverage altogether, even those not for profit, because they are losing money hand over fist. Losing money is not a good economic model for anyone but the government, because the government can always seize more of your personal assets, raise taxes, and print money, neither of which is positive for the citizenry in the long run.
You might want to look up who has the most expensive health care in the nation before running your mouth. It’s Massachusetts, where everyone is forced to buy health coverage similar to Obamacare. Middle class families (who the Dems claim they care so much about) have literally been priced out of the market. Sitting on the sidelines IS BETTER than doing something when that something is destroying the private sector’s role in the best health care system in the world.
To Jonny Austin: Sooo….you think that sitting on the sidelines and not doing anything at all while a health system that really started soaring out of control after Reagan worked his little magic is allowed to keep soaring out of control until magical market forces step in set things right? Will that be when a 3 night stay at a modest community hospital costs $24? $36k? $60k, $120k?
And as far as Massachusetts goes, there may have been market forces of a different nature at work.
Personally I think costs are and have been soaring out of control because the Hippocratic Oath, which for millennia has been code of behavior for doctors that basically told them not to exploit their position and to always put the needs of the patient first, has been replaced with a corporate mentality that’s been exploiting how most people are willing to pay almost any amount to be cured of pain and illness. Compare that attitude to this excerpt from the classic version of the Oath: “and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine.”
BC wrote: “… a code of behavior for doctors that basically told them not to exploit their position and to always put the needs of the patient first.”
Rule 1: Do no harm to the patient. Obamacare fails on that alone, putting costs above saving lives and pulling essential drugs for the terminally ill.
Rule 2: Put the patient first. The government can’t and doesn’t have that ability. See Canada, the UK, and almost any other country with socialized medicine where 6 to 9 month waits are the norm for basic medical procedures like an MRI or gall bladder surgery.
Obamacare makes the Hippocratic Oath worthless. As Dr. Campbell says in the article, we need health care based on medical degree, not government decree. You can set up the straw man of the “corporate mentality” all you want, but it’s the government playing God that poses the real danger.
To Jonny Austin: Getting “information” about the health care plan from right wing sources, as you obviously did, is basically like going to a drug dealer for advice on how to quit taking drugs: you will only be badly and deliberately misinformed.
There are reasons why smart, well-informed and ethical people haven’t found any reason to vote Republican for a long while now. Obama may not be perfect, but he’s laughably better than Bush and anyone the GOP can currently come up with. The Republican party has firmly become the party of morons and bad guys.
“Getting information about the health care plan from LEFT WING sources, as you obviously did, is basically like going to the GOVERNMENT for advice on how to quit relying on their BANKRUPT ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS: you will only be badly and deliberately misinformed.”
Fixed it for you, BC.
I hope you win, and get this Obamacare repealed. I have always admired the Texan attitude, and I can’t imagine you Texans standing for it when the Democrats tell you to vote for them or you won’t get health care.
Well, Dr. Donna, I AM in your district and am proud to vote for you! You go, girl.On or off crutches, you are a shining light and we look forward to seeing you in Washington.
Each passing day seems to bring to the surface one complaint or outright refusal to accept and adopt the fiscal monstrosity of ObamaCare that was sneaked through the Congress during a night-time session last Summer
I would dearly love to see Dr Campbell beat Lloyd Doggett, but I fear there is a problem that just might prevent that from happening. Dr. Campbell appears to be “Too nice a person”. She speaks well and has the right ideas, but she does not give the impression of being tough even though she may well be tough. I wish there were some magic pill she could take to make her persona appear tougher and allow her to be more assertive. This is Texas and Texans want a strong and tough leader with good ideas. I dearly hope I am wrong and that she wins this race.