It’s not politics; it’s a pledge: Lamborn vows to oppose ‘health care takeover’

Colorado U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, made the unsurprising announcement today that he had joined 26 other lawmakers sponsored by the conservative Club for Growth in pledging to work to stop federal health reform legislation from taking effect.

The pledge:

I, Doug Lamborn, hereby pledge to the people of my district, (CO-05), to sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government.

Rep. Doug Lamborn
Rep. Doug Lamborn

“From Massachusetts to Colorado, Americans are rejecting big government,” Lamborn said of his decisions to sign. “The Democrats’ massive healthcare bill to take over one-sixth of our economy has come to symbolize all that is wrong with government. I will do my part to ensure that the American people are not forced to live under a system that restricts freedom and personal liberty.”

Now that the so-called public option has been removed from the current Senate bill and is less likely than ever to be included in the final reconciled bill, however, it is unclear how the legislation would effect a “take over” of the private insurance, drug and health care industries or assume control of the production or profits generated from “one-sixth of the economy.”

But Lamborn is certainly tapping into public opposition to reform. Indeed, he has strongly opposed the federal health reform legislation from the outset and set himself apart to some degree on the issue. He declined to join a sort of “super health reform town hall” this past summer that included most of the rest of the Colorado delegation to Congress. He held a competing individual town hall, where he leaned on transparently slanted data to show the relative functioning nature of the U.S. health care system and he expressed disappointment that members of the audience heckled him.

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