Testimony: Of pills, freedom, Nazis, Fidel Castro and Rosa Parks…

Whitney Rearick of Boise told the House State Affairs Committee she has Crohn’s Disease and has lost her job, and now can’t afford health insurance - and she was counting on the exchanges under health care reform to make insurance affordable for her. Holding up two pill bottles, Rearick told the committee, “This is what freedom looks like to me. This is freedom right here - without these pills, I would be in the hospital.” She said her medication costs almost $200 a month. Rearick noted that she confronted Barbieri in a capitol hallway after the bill was introduced and asked him what he thinks someone like her should do. “He looked at me and said, ‘Go to the hospital,’” she said.

Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, compared health care reform to the Nazis and said Cuba’s Fidel Castro approved of it. She told the House State Affairs Committee, “Most of my citizens in my district are scared, scared at this huge loss of freedom.”

Lori Shoemaker, who identified herself as a mother of two, told the committee, “Nowhere in that bill is it directing the federal government to do anything. We’re just directing our own state agencies for what they’re going to spend resources for or not.” Shoemaker said she fears the costs of the health care reform law could mean she’d lose her job at a small business. “My husband and I want to take care of our family and keep our home. How many Idahoans will lose their jobs, becoming a liability on the state, if you don’t stand up for us?”  she asked. “I know it’s scary. I’m sure it was tremendously scary for Rosa Parks to sit down at the front of that bus. There’s also fear about being ridiculed. … I’m proud to be a citizen of the great state of Idaho who will do what’s right, even if its scary, and take the seat at the front of the bus.”