Strickland Embraces Disastrous Government-Run Health Care

– Will Rally with Obama to Seek Support of Budget-Busting, Job-Killing Bill –

 “Ted Strickland has mishandled the Ohio economy and budget and now he has cast his lot with the misguided and unpopular government takeover of health care.  If he thinks this is good for Ohio – or good politics – then it’s a good thing he’ll be retiring soon.”

 – Tim Murtaugh, Republican Governors Association

 Ohio Governor Ted Strickland will join President Barack Obama in a rally Monday to support the federal government takeover of health care that has preoccupied Washington, D.C. Democrats for months and been rejected by the people of Ohio and America.  Strickland has been unequivocal in his support of the health care debacle, despite its impact on jobs, taxes and state and federal budgets.

Employer groups argue that the health care plan Strickland supports will kill jobs, while Ohio already suffers from 10.8-percent unemployment, a rate higher than the national average.  The state is currently facing a budget deficit that even Strickland himself projects at approximately $7 billion.  Strickland has been inexplicably silent about what he has planned to fix his mess while Ohio faces looming reductions in federal Medicaid assistance as a result of the health care plan he supports.   

“I think we’re going to get health care,” Strickland said in Westerville on March 6, 2010, incredibly blaming his 1994 defeat in a Congressional race on Democrats’ inability to pass health care under President Clinton.  “I believe it’s not only the right thing to do, but I believe, it’s the politically smart thing to do.”

For Strickland to believe that backing the federal takeover of health care is politically smart must indicate that he did not see the Qunnipiac poll released in February, which showed the health care proposal exceedingly unpopular among Ohio voters:

From February 16 – 21, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,662 Ohio voters, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points.