Peter Kinder takes on health care in pitch to supporters
JEFFERSON CITY — Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder suggests in a YouTube video he’s sent to supporters that if the national health care proposal being debated by Congress is approved, it would lead to closing prisons and universities in Missouri.
Kinder, widely believed to be positioning himself for a run against Gov. Jay Nixon in 2012, takes on his Democratic foe in the video, suggesting that Nixon has been “silent” on the issue of national health care reform.
The Republican argues that the “government takeover” of health care would push costs on to the states and force the Legislature to cut essential services.
Most of the nation’s Democratic governors have signed on to a letter urging Congress to pass health care reform, but Nixon’s name was not on the letter.
Some governors, Democrats and Republicans, are worried that the health care legislation will amount to an unfunded mandate that would fall on states to fund.
The White House has countered that because the bill is expected to reduce overall health care costs, any potential increases to the state will balance out. But there are so many competing versions of the bill that states, at least at the moment, will have a hard time working on their own budgets as they prepare for whatever new rules or programs might come out.
Peter Kinder is a poor excuse for a civil servant. Thousands if not millions of Missourians suffer ill effects from government weapons programs conducted here in Missouri. It is a crime to add insult to these injuries. Many Missourians are suffering discrimination in employment, health insurance, and housing due to their being victimized by the government in order to produce weapons. Planes, nuclear bombs, and other materials were produced in St. Louis and elsewhere in Missouri as part of the cold war and WWII. It is a crime against humanity for the rich among us many of them Nazi supporters to heap criticism on those that suffered to fight Fascism and Communism,. How dare they call us Socialist for wanting the government to defend us from what it did to us.
Peter Kinder is an outstanding civil servant. At least he takes positions on major issues and tells us what those positions are.
Jay Nixon and Robin Carnahan are the poor excuses you’re looking for. Neither one of them has taken a position on Obamacare, cap and trade or any other major issues.
Spineless both of them. Absolutely spineless.
Hey P-D…way to fail to mention that nobody is proposing a government take over of health care….Also way to fail to mention that the government already runs much of our health care system and regulates the rest…
Mr Kinder is merely repeating National Republican speak. Republicans have offered no meaningful proposals on health care. They have only been critical but some of them do admit “something” should be done.
There is no evidence that the thrust of the proposals being discussed would result in a massive unfunded mandate. Kinder is fear mongering. This is all the national and state party seems to have to offer us?
You would think we live in North Korea where news of the outside world is forbidden. The vast majority of Americans do not realize that we pay individually twice as much for health care as citizens in the other 29 industrialized countries around the world. Look up OECD Health Data. What this amounted to in 2007 was $7,300 per US citizen and half that for citizens elsewhere. And for this whopping price difference we get less care. Fifty million get only emergency room care. We get fewer procedures and so forth.
Citizens we should be alarmed. I am for my children. Myself, I already have socialized medicine which is what the VA system is. The government owns the hospitals and hires the docs. I get good service. Next year I will be 65 and be in a Single Payer system called Medicare.
I agree, I am disappointed that the governor and Ms Carnahan are not beating the drums for health care. Why be timid? America spends $2.5 trillion on health care a year. Based on our numbers versus the rest of the industrialized world, someone is ripping us off to the tune of $1.25 trillion. Of course some of that is spent on buying legislators.