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Tasini Says He Would Vote “No” On Senate Health Care Reform Bill


New York, NY—Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, Jonathan Tasini, released the following statement today, concerning the Senate version of the health care reform bill:

If I were a member of the United States Senate today, I would vote NO on the bill before the Senate, understanding that such a vote would mean that the bill would not pass because of the undemocratic nature of the filibuster rule.

I would do so despite the enormous work put into health care reform by the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership. However, the more important question is whether the bill lives up to the basic principles of health care reform: making sure that all Americans have access to affordable health care coverage and businesses are relieved of the crushing costs of health care. The bill fails to accomplish those goals and sets us back.

In brief, here are my 5 main reasons for opposing the bill:

First, by dropping the public option, the American people are left with a system that continues to allow private, for-profit insurance companies to interfere with a better and closer working relationship between patients and their existing doctors. Rather than afford more choice for patients, the Senate bill sets up a tax-subsidized mandatory purchase of for-profit health insurance—a windfall for the insurance industry at the expense of the American people.

Second, the bill continues the attack against womens rights that we first saw in the House version. Our party cannot, and should not, waver from a solid commitment to protect a woman’s right to privacy and to health care. Democrats cannot, and should not, vote to disenfranchise women in America, with a vote for a health care plan that allows one group to dilute the rights of a larger group: the American women and the American family's right to choose.

Third, the Senate bill does not contain the proposed Kuncinich amendment House language that allows states to pursue single-payer, “Medicare For All”. The House initial legislation removed the legal barrier under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to states enacting what I have long been in favor of, as both a moral and economic solution to the health care crisis. States should be allowed to pursue health care coverage that would be superior to the federal standard outlined in the deeply flawed Senate bill.

Fourth, the Senate bill penalizes hard-working Americans by taxing health care benefits won through the process of collective bargaining—a cornerstone of the building of the American Dream.

Fifth, the Senate bill encourages companies to increase its workforce of low-paid workers, already exacerbating the plunge in wages for workers and speeding our country to a Wal-Mart vision of America. The Senate bill does not require employers to contribute any money to publicly-subsidized health care for any employees who are under 133 percent of the poverty line, which one in ten workers in America are under. That’s 6 million families in 2008, according to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

I want to end by respectfully disagreeing with the false assumption that Senators must vote for a bill that is fatally flawed because some contend that if this bill does not pass, then, no health care bill will pass—perhaps for some time. We, Democrats, were given control of the legislative and executive branches of the White House. We can decide, as a party, that we can, and should, do better—for workers, for the uninsured, for women, for business. We can challenge, publicly, those individual Senators who, by using the undemocratic threat of a filibuster-lite, have held the American people hostage on behalf of special interests. We can get to work crafting legislation to meet the needs of the American people rather than the greedy demands of special interests and the defenders of the status quo.

I call on both Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to vote “No” on this flawed bill.