Bismarck Tribune Nails Earl Pomeroy On House Vote, Pomeroy Hints At Maybe Voting Against Final Bill

Pomeroy, apparently, is hinting at ultimately voting against the bill once it comes back from the Senate with changes.
That hardly sounds like someone who is confident in his position.

Pomeroy agrees that the House version of reform is far from perfect, but that he voted yes to keep the conversation going. And if the problems with the legislation are not fixed, he would vote no, if and when the reform packages returns to the House after supposed Senate approval and work by a conference committee. Rejecting the legislation, he said, and starting again from scratch isn’t an option. Getting a good bill through the House, however, was an option, one that members of the House missed the mark on.
The House and Senate ideas about health care reform are not parallel. The two chambers pay for the reform in different ways, provide government-run options in different ways, provide different subsidies and offer a multitude of changes in how health care operates in this country.
By voting in favor of the House reform package, Pomeroy rationalizes that he has helped keep the conversation going, but there’s no guarantee that the end result will be good for North Dakotans.

Pomeroy saying that he voted for a bad bill to “keep the conversation going” sounds like an excuse from someone who knows he made a mistake.
Making Americans more dependent on the government for health care isn’t going to solve the problem at the heart of this whole debate. Which is, namely, spiraling health care prices. Unaffordable prices happen when there is a lack of competition. Where there is competition, things are more affordable.
A bill that forces us all to buy insurance – selecting only from government-approved plans purchased through a government-run health care exchange – does not generate competition. And without competition prices won’t come down. And if prices don’t come down, we’ll keep paying out the nose for health care. Only we’ll pay taxes too in addition to premiums and co-pays.
We need more choice in health care. North Dakotans need to be able to purchase policies from insurance companies in Florida or Delaware or anywhere else in the nation if those are the right policies for them. North Dakotans need to be able to sit down and choose for themselves what their plans will and will not cover. They need to define their own plans, not just buy in to whatever plan their employer offers.
More choice means more competition. More competition means better service and better prices. Everyone knows this. Even the liberals know this, which is why they paint their plan as creating more competition.
But we need actual competition. Not more government control masquerading as competition.