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October 01, 2009
Government-Run Health Care by Next Thursday?
Government-Run Health Care by Next Thursday?
The Washington Post front page blares today: “Prospects for Public Option Dim in Senate.” Don’t believe it. Yes, the Senate Finance Committee did vote down two amendments that each would have added a government-run insurance plan to the committee’s health care bill. But two key Democrats who voted against Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Tom Carper (D-DE), voted for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) version.
According to an independent analysis of Senate Democrat public statements on the public option, that raises the number of Democrats on record supporting a public option from 47 to 49. Moreover, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairmen of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, told the liberal “Bill Press Radio Show” yesterday that Democrats “comfortably” have the remaining votes to reach 51 and pass a public plan once the debate moves to the House floor.
But what about Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) claim yesterday that, “No one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option.” That may be true, but it is also irrelevant. The question is not whether Democrats can muster 60 votes to pass Obamacare; they only need 51 votes to do that. The only time the number 60 will be relevant is when the Senate votes on whether to end debate and vote on the final bill. This is a separate question. We can see Senators from red states like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanch Lincoln (D-AR), and Kent Conrad (D-ND) voting against an amendment creating a public option. But voting with Republicans against their party and against their President to support a Republican filibuster? That would take a lot of courage. It would guarantee that these Democrats would face fierce opposition from their leftist bases back home. Just ask the left’s new whip for the public option, Michael Moore. Speaking to women’s groups and unions in Washington, DC, yesterday, Moore warned:
"To the Democrats in Congress who don’t quite get it: I want to offer a personal pledge. I – and a lot of other people – have every intention of removing you from Congress in the next election if you stand in the way of health care legislation that the people want. That is not a hollow or idle threat. We will come to your district and we will work against you, first in the primary and, if we have to, in the general election."
Moore is, of course, the perfect spokesman for the public option. He is in Washington promoting his new film “Capitalism: A Love Story” in which Moore argues that “Capitalism is an evil, and you can’t regulate evil.” A more succinct summation of theory behind the public option does not exist. While supporters of the plan, including the White House, insist that the purpose of the public option is to bring “choice and competition” to the health care, nothing could be further from the truth. As Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, and Noble Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have all candidly admitted, the public option is nothing more than a Trojan horse for a single-payer, government-run health care system. Moore even told Rolling Stone magazine this summer:
"If a true public option is enacted — and Obama knows this — it will eventually bring about a single payer system, because the profit-making insurance companies won’t be able to compete with a government run plan and make the profits they want to make."
So just how close are we to being inflicted with the Obama/Moore dream of anti-capitalist, competition-free, government-run health care? Closer than many realize. Multiple sources on the Hill have told The Foundry that as early as next week, the Senate could be debating Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Reid has stated an intention to take the HELP Committee product and merge it with the Senate Finance Committee markup that is expected to be over by this Thursday or Friday. Their plan is to proceed to a House passed non-health care bill to provide a shell of legislation to give Obamacare a ride to the House and then straight to the President’s desk.
Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare
Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.
The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.
The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.
The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:
Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.
Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.
Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients.
The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.
Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage.
Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
With such massive opposition to this, if they do this, it will be their undoing. They are so arrogant that they are thumbing their nose at Americans and our Constitution.
This is war, and I mean it. What the hell do they think our brothers, sisters; sons and daughters; mothers and fathers have fought for and died for since the start of this great nation.
We Know!!!! FREEDOM!!!!!
And no sorry excuse of a human in Washington is ever going to take that Blood earned Right from me or my family or any of us, without a fight they have never seen before.
God help them, but please God be with those who carry you and the love of your Country strong in their hearts most.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at October 1, 2009 05:50 AM
Comments
What really gets me is how many young people don't realize what this is going to do to their future. It's like they don't care. I don't need the government to take care of me and mine from cradle to grave. They use that medicare and social security are socialized programs. yes, they are and they were instituted by a democrat-FDR. But we pay for those in our paychecks, so we're just getting back what we've paid into them-just like unemployment benefits.
I look down the road another 15 years or so. I will be a senior citizen and that's when all this mess is suppose to hit the fan. I do not need some bureaucrat telling me I've lived long enough and should just take a cyanide pill instead of chemotherapy or decide not to try and resucitate me if I have a heart attack or stroke. I want to enjoy my elderly years with my family-my hubby, my kids, my grandkids and great grandkids. And I want to make my own decisions! Good or bad, they're mine to make.
Posted by: Lynn at October 1, 2009 08:19 AM
56% of the American people don't want this POS Health Care reform. But it will be jammed down our throats anyway. All for this little creep the Soutpiel Puppet. Who spends more money wasting time on apologising for America.
We are losing our allies, our enemies are now realizing how weak this man is, and how to take advantage of that. He has made us just as vulnerable if not more than we were on December 6, 1941.
When it happens, I hope all those 'praying to obama' will remember what is the chant for asking God to help us. Because suddenly obama won't look so powerful but the weak pussy we all know he is.
Posted by: Mark at October 1, 2009 09:00 AM
The great experiment has begun. Socializing America in record time. You are right Mark, they are cramming it down our throats. All the Democrats. Not just obama. They are going all out, 100%. We need to go all out to try to stop it now. But I don't know how we can do this except by hounding the Blue Dog Democrats.
If this obamacare passes I think we are screwed. Even if we voted in a 100% conservative Congress I don't know if they can overturn a law. That might put it in the hands of SCOTUS which is not a sure bet.
Posted by: TomR at October 1, 2009 12:52 PM
Anything with the fingeprints of Chuck Scummer on it has to be a disaster.
Posted by: Rhod at October 1, 2009 01:49 PM
Interesting stat, Mark. Moore says that 2/3 of Americans want a POS system.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/michael_moore_s_health_care_threat
Posted by: Stephanie at October 1, 2009 03:49 PM
Lynn, your right it will be there future. I
wish more people would take what is going on
in our country more seriously. What our
government does effects all of our lives.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 1, 2009 07:55 PM
Thank you everyone.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 2, 2009 02:20 AM
