This bipartisan legislation will end discrimination against patients seeking treatment for mental illnesses by prohibiting insurers and group health plans from imposing treatment or financial limitations when they offer mental health benefits that are more restrictive from those applied to medical and surgical services.Congressman Ehlers voted against the bill.
"Although this bill made some controversial changes to SCHIP, which I do not approve, I believe the overall bill is acceptable and I voted for it," said Congressman Ehlers. "I grew up with acute asthma, and I know personally how important it is for kids to have access to affordable health care. This bill will continue to provide health care coverage to millions of children who otherwise would be uninsured."
Last night at the Women's City Club in Grand Rapids, Democracy for America's Kent County chapter held a panel discussion titled "Searching for a Constructive Response to our Entanglement in Iraq." The panel featured two West Michigan area professors and a former military chaplain, all of who gave twenty-minute talks on the conflict in Iraq followed by a question and answer period.
Surprisingly, Grand Rapids area congressional representative Vern Ehlers who has recently stated his unwillingness to listen to protestors, attended the event. While it is nice to see Ehlers out in public engaging the current situation in Iraq, the fact that Ehlers chose to attend this particular event--and not any of the other numerous teach-ins that took place before and after the start of the war--is somewhat troublesome for those who have been pressuring Ehlers to end the occupation of Iraq as the three panelists basically echoed Ehlers' position that the United States has a "moral obligation" to the Iraqi people and that the United States must stay in the country to attempt to mitigate the effects of what is for the most part now a civil war. To be fair, Democracy for America cannot be blamed for Ehlers' attendance, but it was unfortunate that all three panelists represented what was at best a "centrist" position on the situation. There was no voice for an immediate withdrawal on the panel, nor for that matters were there any voices calling for a timetable for withdrawal. Ehlers will likely see the panel as bolstering his position, he has recently claimed that he will only listen to "facts" when making his decisions about the war and now he has three area "experts" on record essentially supporting his position on the conflict.
The fact sheet also highlights the fact that the war has cost residents of the 3rd Congressional District that includes Grand Rapids at least $818 million dollars. According to the National Priorities Project's analysis, that money could have paid for healthcare for 139,738 children for the duration of the Iraq War, 6,595 affordable housing units, or 74 elementary schools. The cost of the war to the city of Grand Rapids (http://www.costofwar.com/) has been estimated to be at least $236,523,931.Media Mouse goes on to list the many "facts" that evidently have not swayed Congresman Ehlers, including the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed, the millions who have been displaced, numerous attacks by insurgents, and the lack of electricity throughout most of teh day in Baghdad.
These costs have apparently been ignored by Republican Representative Vern Ehlers who represents the Third District. Over the past week, Ehlers--who was questioned about whether or not he would support cutting funding for the war--has refused to do so. Instead, Ehlers has claimed that he initially had "deep reservations" about the war and is unhappy without how it has gone, but has stated that it will be a "bloodbath" if the United States leaves. Ehlers has further said that he will not be influenced by demonstrations but rather will be "swayed by facts."
They have been in town several weeks now, organizing meetings, attending demonstrations, handing out lawn signs, andwriting letters, all aimed at changing one man's mind.
"The only person around here who can do anything about this is Vern Ehlers," said Bryan Finken, 46, a part-time philosophy professor from Denver, about the war in Iraq.
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Their effort is part of a national campaign by a coalition of anti-war groups called Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. The effort is targeting 40 Republican members of Congress they believe may be wavering in their support for the war.
Those 40, if they change their minds, would give the war's opponents a veto-proof majority in Congress, organizers said. They call their campaign Iraq Summer, modeled after the 1964 Freedom Summer, which registered black voters in the South, and the summer of 1967 protests against the Vietnam War.
"...You don’t like the fact that while you were in power after years of flat lining the Pell Grant, we we’ve finally given them the biggest increase in decades for the poorest kids in this country. You don’t like that so you want to kill the bill. You don’t like the fact that were going to take 5 million middle class kids and extend to them a loan thats interest rate is cut in half? While their families are struggling to get them through college? They’re making sacrifices every year? You’re going to do this? You’re going to kill this bill? Are you proud? Are you proud of this amendment, that you are going to try to kill this bill? Say it louder."
