Brian Williams, legislative director at the National Center for Policy Analysis, tells Newsmax.TV that as poll numbers favoring President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform legislation continue to slip, more Americans are coming out against it. Williams says there’s a lot of Americans concerned –– or at the very least confused –– about what’s going on with regard to healthcare reform.
He doesn’t agree with the Democrats dismissal of town hall protests as an “Astroturf” movement as opposed to real grassroots outrage. Nor does he concur with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s description of protesters of health care reform as “un-American.”
See Video: Brian Williams of the FreeOurHealthCareNow petition movement talks about the dangers of Obamacare - Click Here Now
“I just don’t agree with that,” Williams tells Newsmax. “I’ve seen how the Republicans are acting on this and, frankly, as much as we appreciate a lot of the efforts of some of our Republican friends, they’re just not that organized in opposition. So I can’t see how this is an organized effort –– certainly nowhere near what we’ve seen with the Code Pink efforts or some of the other protests in the past.”
Williams says FreeOurHealthCareNow.com, an online petition against the nationalization of the American health care system, has already generated more than one million signatures.“Several months ago, as we were looking at healthcare reform, we realized the process here in Washington was starting to break down,” Williams tells Newsmax.Williams credits John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, with the idea to go out to the people of America and educate them through FreeOurHealthCareNow.com.
“The mechanism and process we decided to use was to educate America through a petition, allowing them to read what’s being proposed in Washington and also to express their opinion on the matter.” Williams says protesters of healthcare reform who show up at the town halls are legitimate people, including senior citizens and people from all walks of life who are confused.“They want to understand the details if government is going to take over this sector of our economy,” he says.
“They show up at these town hall meetings with legitimate concerns. It’s a legitimate form of letting your voice be heard in this country.” Williams agrees with NCPA President Goodman that the national healthcare debate has become trench warfare between government control and patient-doctor control.“It has become that, frankly, and that’s one of the reasons that the FreeOurHealthCareNow.com petition is out there, so that we can enlist the help of run-of-the-mill, garden-variety Americans in this battle.”
Williams believes the tide has turned over the last few weeks in regard to healthcare reform, especially since the August recess when congress had to go back home and listen to the voices of their constituents.
“I think we are making our voices heard,” he says, “and members of congress are hopefully hearing that message. When they return to work in September, I hope that they bring that message back to Washington with them and they debate it and talk about what they heard back home. ”It’s unclear who will eventually win the debate, Williams admits.“ Right now I think the tide has turned in our favor,” he says. “We are not opposed to health reform; we recognize there are a lot of problems with the current health care system: It costs too much and the quality isn’t necessarily incentivized to improve.” Access is certainly a problem, Williams says.
“That’s why we have some people who are uninsured. These and other problems need to be solved, but not this way. The way that has been proposed in Washington, especially, boils down to just two or three ideas: One is to control costs by rationing the amount of health care available to Americans, and the other might be squeezing the doctors [as to] how much they’re allowed to be paid. But those ideas will not solve the problem. So, in terms of who’s winning, I [believe] the tide is in our favor. And I hope that as Congress comes back into session in September, we will be able to debate real reforms that will really help.” Williams’ biggest concern about the legislation moving through Congress is a government takeover of the health care sector of the nation’s economy.
“If we’re going to solve cost and the access problem, and ensure a high quality of health care, there are ideas that we can employ to do that,” Williams tells Newsmax. “These are not new ideas; these are ideas that are happening right now in other healthcare fields, like Lasix surgery for instance.” Williams says the strength of the current health care system that dcotros have to compete with each other. They have to compete for customers. Because of simple free-market competition, Lasix surgery costs have come down over the last few years, Williams notes, and the quality has gone way up.“Lasix surgery today is immensely better than it was ten years ago,” Williams points out.
“And the prices have come down. We can do that same thing in other areas of health care if we would simply get government out of health care and allow simple, free-market forces to bring prices down and bring quality up.”Williams says the FreeOurHealthCareNow petition will be delivered to the Congress in late August and hopes members of Congress will listen to the opposition.“We hope that they’re listening,” he says.
“We are going to deliver the petition both to Congress and the White House because we want members of Congress to know that these are their voters –– these are their constituents. Not only that, but they are people that will be affected by any health care reform that comes out of Washington. So, as we deliver the petition, we hope members of Congress will listen. That’s we hired them to do. Their job on our behalf is to go to Washington to solve problems and represent us. That’s where the word representative comes from.”
See Video: Brian Williams of the FreeOurHealthCareNow petition movement talks about the dangers of Obamacare - Click Here Now
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