Teague leaning against supporting reform bill, Washington Post says
U.S. Rep. Harry Teague (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
There are dozens of still-undecided members of the U.S. House when it comes to Sunday’s looming vote on health-care reform. Today Politico highlights them, and U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., gets a mention.
Under the category of “The Besieged,” which is largely composed of “at-risk freshman from tough districts,” Teague is among those Democrats who “have it worse than others: They will very likely be walking the plank by voting the party line,” the article states.
Perhaps that’s why the Washington Post has moved Teague out of the undecided category. The Post, in a comprehensive chart of House members’ views on the legislation, lists Teague as leaning against supporting the legislation.
There are some clues to justify placing Teague in that category.
• Teague voted against the House version of the health-care reform legislation last year, saying at the time, “we need to reform our health care system,” but the bill “doesn’t do enough to rein in insurance companies.” He also said he was “concerned that American taxpayers will end up footing a nearly $900 billion tab for a bill that doesn’t do enough to ‘bend the cost curve’ in a way that permanently reduces both costs and the national debt.”
• Teague’s spokeswoman, Sara Schreiber, has said more than once this week that Teague remains concerned about the bill. “Congressman Teague voted no on the House health-care bill and has expressed serious concerns about both the Senate bill and about using reconciliation instead of regular order to move this bill through the Congress,” she has said.
• On Thursday, Teague sided with Republicans in a failed bid to force a direct vote on the legislation, which would have disallowed the possible use of the so-called “deem-and-pass” parliamentary procedure.
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Wedum59 needs to study the history of Socialism. It is when a government passes so many social programs that the people rely on the government to take care of them. It has failed throughout history because government doesn’t know when to stop passing and taxing the people.
Just because the Congressmen/women will be covered by the same program, doesn’t’ mean it will stay that way. They can vote themselves out of it anytime they find it is not a good system. Also with the money they retire on, do you think they are worried about health insurance for themselves? They are voting on a system that says ‘follow the leader and don’t break ranks.’
The government DOES NOT HAVE YOUR BEST INTEREST IN MIND. They only want to control you completely.
Just outlawing the practice of excluding coverage for preexisting conditions will help millions of people, thousands who live right here in New Mexico.
It would help me and I think most people would be in favor of that. So why not just legislate that? Don’t make me sail on the Titanic just to get a good dinner.
Please, Harry, don’t pull a Michael Moore on the American people–just because this bill doesn’t go far enough, its a reasonable start. Just outlawing the practice of excluding coverage for preexisting conditions will help millions of people, thousands who live right here in New Mexico. Please don’t be afraid to vote yes.
I’m pretty upset with Teague too, but TO is mistaken, Teague’s health care benefits are NOT “socialist.” He and all the members of Congress are enrolled in the same program as all Federal employees. Since there are something like 90,000 of them, they get a good deal from the for-profit insurance companies, just as do the employees of any large corporation.
And he IS supporting a lot of good legislation that Pearce would automatically say “NO” to, like HR 1826, the Fair Elections Now Act, along with Heinrich and Lujan. There are 140 co-sponsors, and only 3 of them are Republicans. See
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1826
Indeed stever, indeed.
Nothing signals desparation more than name-calling and personal attacks instead of arguing the merits. If you want to make passing this particular piece of legislation (not the idea of it, but the actual nuts and bolts) into a logical decision, stop acting like a seventh grader.
Harry was a ‘one termer’ the minute the vote was tallied. Some of his votes are good, defensible Democratic votes; with the Party, in support of the platform, and right for the nation. But not the most important vote: Healthcare. I don’t like the bill, but I can’t vote on it. If I could inject anything into the debate it would have been to make T.R. Reid’s book The Healing of America a prerequisite for voting on any bill. But when the bill passes (and it will) it will not only be the benchmark for building an even stronger approach for health care remedy, it will also be the start of the next cycle of disingenuous truth defelction from the Party of No.
Pearce will come out of the bull pen ready to get his race on. I have sat through too many meetings with this guy. He is an incompetant, shallow fraud. He governs from the same altitude where he flew his jet. From that austere height, we all look very, very small to him.
And he wants to keep it that way.
In the end, Harry will be no great loss. It actually allows Dems to focus on keeping other districts intact rather than throwing money away in CD2. The larger picture is holding the House and Senate, which the Dems will. The even greater picture is to start governing without the mind numbing buffoonery of the Republican Party.
Go figure…an obscenely rich Democratic congressman (a Republican in Democratic clothing in other words), representing a mostly conservative anti-anything-having-to-do-with-Democrats district, doesn’t support health care reform because he, like all of his hypocritical Congressional colleagues, already is enrolled in a government (aka socialist) health care system set up for him by us (the taxpayer). And yet this guy represents one of the poorest districts in the country, with some of the worst health care stats in the nation! Huh? If any of this stuff were made up nobody would believe it. Only in America.