Foxx: Health bill belongs 'on scrap heap'

By Jim Mcnally
Published: December 23, 2009

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U.S. Rep.Virginia Foxx derided a decision by the Senate to move forward with the health care bill.

Senators voted right along party lines early Monday morning and came up with the 60 votes required to block a filibuster on the controversial bill.

Foxx — a Republican whose 5th District includes Statesville and northern Iredell County — issued a statement on the matter in which she said the legislation was "loaded up with new taxes and more bureaucratic nonsense."

In the statement, Foxx said the vote to move on with the bill is not the kind of thing most Americans want to see under their Christmas trees.

"If the Senate thinks this is the sort of Christmas present America wants, they are badly mistaken," she said in the statement. "This is just the latest version of a creeping government takeover of health care."

Foxx said if bill passes — and the Senate is hoping to do so before Christmas — it will include $518 billion in new taxes.

"There's hardly an American who won't feel the effects of this wide-ranging thievery," she said.

Foxx said the bill would tax those with too much health care and those who don't have enough health care.

"This is no way to solve our health care problems," she said.

Foxx said the bill provides some metaphorical coal for the Christmas stockings of seniors.

"Even the Congressional Budget office recently said the bill's $470 billion in cuts to Medicare may 'reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.' "

Closer to home, Foxx said, "many of these cuts will impact the 40,000 seniors in the 5th District, who enjoy the expanded care and benefits of Medicare Advantage."

Foxx also said the bill does not do enough to make a clear separation between taxpayer dollars and private dollars in cases of abortion.

"As national pro-life groups have already indicated, this is completely unacceptable," Foxx said. "The bottom line is that this bill deserves a place on the scrap heap."

But freshman U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat from Greensboro, has a different view of the health legislation.

"The Senate will vote this week on a pro-patient, pro-consumer and pro-senior bill," Hagan said in a statement. "Passage of health care reform means insurance companies can no longer discriminate against you if you get sick. It means when North Carolinians lose their jobs or want to change their jobs, they are not held hostage by their health insurance."

Hagan said speculation that the passage of the health reform legislation will cost taxpayers more money is in error.

"This bill will reduce the deficit, which has been a requirement of mine all along," she said. "I will continue working with my colleagues to get a health care reform bill to the president's desk that reduces costs, expands coverage and provides stability to families."