Western New York’s own Chris Lee was one of those members who stood in bipartisan opposition to government-run health care, and he has sent a letter out to supporters asking for help in the fight.

The fight to stop Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s budget-busting, government takeover of health care is not over.

As you probably know, late Saturday a bare majority of the House of Representatives voted for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s $1.2 trillion, 2,000-page government takeover of America’s health care system. Along with 39 Democratic colleagues, I strongly opposed this misguided, fiscally irresponsible measure.

There is no question that urgent reform to our health care system is necessary, and I have been a strong proponent of common sense reforms to lower the cost of care and make health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans.

The alternative plan I supported would have actually lowered premiums for Americans, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It would have allowed Americans and small businesses to access the same health care breaks that large corporations receive. It would have taken costs out of the system by enacting meaningful medical liability reform to stop the costly practice of defensive medicine (which CBO says can save tens of billions in health care costs). It would have helped guarantee affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. And it would not have added to the deficit.

Speaker Pelosi’s bill — which was so bad, so reckless, so extreme that 39 of her own Democrats voted against it — costs $1.2 trillion. It hikes taxes on small businesses, families and large employers by more than $700 billion. It creates more than 100 new commissions and bureaucracies that will have the power to decide what treatments are covered and which are not in the government health plan. An untold number of new federal workers will have to be hired to manage this giant new bureaucracy. I ran for Congress to shrink Washington and grow Western New York, not the other way around.

The good news is that this bill won’t pass the Senate.

We can agree that health care in America is superior to health care anywhere else in the world. We don’t need a system like Canada’s which is apparently so good, Canadians come down to this country for health care. You don’t see, however, Obamacare advocates in Western New York crossing the border to Canada for treatment do you? Pelosi’s version of Obamacare won’t make health care better, it will make it worse. It won’t make health insurance cheaper, it will make it more expensive. Chris Lee’s letter continued,

Pelosi’s bill will do nothing to lower the high cost of health insurance. In fact, according to CBO, Pelosi’s bill would raise insurance premiums for middle-class families. Health care reform that does not reduce the cost of care for families and take waste out of the system is no reform at all.

So, let’s start early and give Chris Lee the support he needs.We need to keep him in Congress.

His situation is nearly untenable. He leads the House tax-writing committee, yet he acknowledges that he failed to report about $75,000 in rental income on his beach house in the Dominican Republic. He owes about $5,000 to the IRS in back taxes on that income and somewhat less in state and local taxes. Rangel also says he did not know he received a no-interest mortgage from the developers of the Dominican resort. In addition, financial discrepancies have turned up in disclosure documents he has filed.

It’s all too much for a congressman with such influence over federal tax policy. Indeed, were Republicans still in the majority, Rangel and his compatriots would be clamoring for the head of a committee chairman with these problems — as GOP critics are calling for Rangel’s.

Of course, Rangel refuses to step down, which is pretty typical of a Democrat. If a Republican were in the same situation, Nancy Pelosi would be demanding resignations and calling for investigations, but with a member of her own party, she’s letting it slide.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday privately pushed Rep. Charlie Rangel to give up his chairmanship of the influential House tax-rules committee amid explosive revelations that his personal tax filings were riddled with errors and omissions, a wellplaced source said.

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One member of the New York congressional delegation who supported Pelosi’s decision said, “You have to have one standard – you can’t have one for [Republicans] and one for us.”

Rangel himself remained mum on his sitdown with Pelosi after exiting a later, separate meeting with fellow Democratic committee members.

“I am unable to say anything,” he said before bizarrely rattling off his name, rank and serial number from his Korean War days. “Do to me what you want, I’m not talking.”

The 76-year-old politician smiled when asked if he was still chairman of the powerful tax panel.

Pelosi later denied through spokesperson Nadeam Elshami that she has asked Rangel to step aside.

If Pelosi doesn’t ask Rangel to step aside as chairman, then John McCain stands to benefit significantly, as he supports the fact that unlike his fellow Democrats, he’s willing to target corruption within his own party. As the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Barack Obama should have called for Rangel to step aside when the allegations first surfaced. But, he didn’t, thus missing his chance to match his rhetoric with actions. But then again, when your campaign is based on slogans over substance, what else were we to expect?