Government Expansion Coming To Your Home Sometime Soon

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted and narrowly passed H.R. 3962, the final House version of the health care reform legislation, last Saturday evening.
I have been following this and although the bill is almost 2000 pages long and there is no way I could read it all in a short time, there are sections of the bill that trouble me greatly. I have been following the Home School Legal Defense Association and their take on the contents on this bill. HSLDA opposes this bill because of its creation of new, federally funded home visitation programs. Costing $750 million dollars, these new programs will teach parents how to raise their own children. These programs will allow the federal government to expand its involvement in early education and could threaten parental rights.

H.R. 3962 is 1,990 pages long. This mammoth bill will not only expand the government’s role in early education, it will interfere with medical decisions between you and your doctor and force employers to make decisions that could lead to lower wages or lay-offs. While health care reform is needed, H.R. 3962 is not the right reform, as it will bring higher taxes, and an increase in government control over families.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said on November 2, 2009: “At its core, this bill is very similar to what we’ve already seen in the Senate—a trillion-dollar government experiment that raises taxes, raises premiums, slashes Medicare, and leads to unprecedented government control over the health care decisions of Americans. That’s the foundation, the starting-off point. It doesn’t get any better from there.”

Now this bill goes to the Senate for passage. Please call your Senators and urge him or her to oppose the federal government’s takeover of health care. You can use some or all of the following message (taken from HSLDA's website):

“Please oppose H.R. 3962, the ‘Affordable Health Care for America Act.’ In a time of economic hardship, the federal government should not take on a program that will double our national debt. I am also opposed the bill’s creation of home visitation/early education programs through grants to the states. Parents, not federal or state officials, should make child rearing decisions for their young children. Additionally, the ‘Affordable Health Care for America Act’ will expand the federal government’s role and will interfere with medical decisions between me and my doctor."

You can find the contact information for your U.S. senators by going to Home School Legal Defense on the internet and using their Legislative Toolbox. This is not a site just for home-schooling families, although they do follow laws and trends that could affect our freedoms as home-schoolers. This site is great information for anyone who loves family values and loves this great, free land in which we live.