Rep. Steney Hoyer photo courtesy http://hoyer.house.gov/

Washington, DC - House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement on Monday after learning that Members of Congress were subjected to racist and inflammatory behavior at Saturday's health insurance bailout reform protest:

"Thank god for the Teabaggers!  Nothing unites like an enemy, and there's nothing in our health insurance corporate bailout bill to unite us with anyone outside the Beltway other than the opposition of the Teabaggers.  Gotta love em.  Antiracism and antihomophobia are righteous and good, but they're our god and guns over on this side of the aisle.  I mean, have you seen the shit that's in our bill ? Not to mention what the president will unconstitutionally legislate on top of it?  If Bush were pushing this bill (and why not?) all the liberals would denounce it.  Why?  Because we would tell them to.  Do you think they would have called a privately run program for 3% of Americans a "public option" if Bush had called it that?  And then fought to keep it in, and then fought to keep it out, at our command?  What, of their

The health insurance bill currently under consideration in Congress would forbid states from providing their residents with healthcare.  An amendment correcting that problem was passed in committee last July and then quietly removed.  A new campaign is asking the Democrats who voted for that amendment to withhold their votes on the bill until it is reinstated.

Several states' legislatures are close to enacting single-payer healthcare bills. This is a complete healthcare solution that eliminates the for-profit insurance industry, lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, reduces bureaucracy, and provides universal coverage. As President Obama explains: "Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what's called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every single individual."

We're not creating such a system in Washington. We're creating something far more limited and compromised, expensive and wasteful. The healthcare bill now in play in Congress may constitute a tremendous step forward, or a tiny one, or a public bailout of the sickness industry that will do more harm than good. The bill includes some good measures but