Highly informed sources on Capitol Hill have revealed to me details of the Democratic plan to sneak Obamacare through Congress, despite collapsing public approval for healthcare “reform” and disintegrating congressional support in the wake of Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.
President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all have agreed to the basic framework of the plan.
Their plan is clever but can be stopped if opponents of radical healthcare reform act quickly and focus on a core group of 23 Democratic Congressman. If just a few of these 23 Democrats are “flipped” and decide to oppose the bill, the whole Obama-Pelosi-Reid stratagem falls apart.
Here’s what I learned top Democrats are planning to implement.
Senate Democrats will go to the House with a two-part deal.
First, the House will pass the Senate’s Obamacare bill that passed the Senate in December. The House leadership will vote on the Senate bill, and Pelosi will allow no amendments or modifications to the Senate bill.
How will Pelosi’s deal fly with rambunctious liberal members of her majority who don’t like the Senate bill, especially its failure to include a public option, put heavy fines on those who don’t get insurance, and offering no income tax surcharge on the “rich”?
That’s where the second part of the Pelosi-deal comes in.
Behind closed doors, Reid and Pelosi have agreed in principle that changes to the Senate bill will be made to satisfy liberal House members — but only after the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by Obama.
This deal will be secured by a pledge from Reid and the Senate’s Democratic caucus that they will make “fixes” to the Senate bill after it becomes law with Obama’s John Hancock.
But you may ask what about the fact that, without Republican Scott Brown and independent Democrats such as Joe Lieberman, Reid simply doesn’t have the 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster that typically can stop major legislation?
According to my source, Reid will provide to Pelosi a letter signed by 52 Democratic senators indicating they will pass the major changes, or “fixes,” the House Democrats are demanding. Again, these fixes will be approved by the Senate only after Obama signs the Senate bill into law.
Reid also has agreed to bypass Senate cloture and filibuster rules and claim that these modifications fall under “reconciliation” and don’t require 60 Senate votes.
To pass the fixes, he won’t need one Republican; he won’t even need Joe Lieberman or wavering Democrats such as Jim Webb of Virginia.
His 52 pledged senators give him a simple majority to pass any changes they want, which will later be rubberstamped by Pelosi’s House and signed by Obama.
This plan, of course, is a total subversion of the legislative process.
Typically, the Senate and House pass their own unique legislation and then both bills go to a conference committee. In conference, the leadership of both Democrat-dominated houses wheels and deals and irons out differences.
The final compromise bill is then sent back to the full Senate and full House for a vote and has to pass both to go to the president.
In the House, a simple majority passes the legislation. But under Senate rules, major legislation requires 60 votes to end a filibuster.
As it stands, the House bill and Senate bill have major discrepancies. Reid does not have 60 votes to pass a compromise bill that would no doubt include some of the radical provisions House members have been demanding.
But if the House passes the exact Senate bill that passed by a 60-39 Senate vote last month, there is no need for a conference on the bill. It will go directly to the president’s desk.
There is a rub to all of this.
This secret plan being hatched by Pelosi and Reid requires not only a pledge by 52 Democratic senators to vote later for the House modifications. House liberals must actually believe these Senators will live up to their pledge and pass the fixes at some future date.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she does not have the votes to pass the Senate’s version of a health insurance bill that is now in severe jeopardy of being scrapped.
Just days ago, that was the most viable option for keeping alive President Obama’s top domestic priority, but with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, the fragile coalition of Democrats has broken apart as lawmakers bicker over which portions of the $900 billion, 10-year Senate bill they will and won’t accept.
Emerging from a closed-door meeting with her caucus, the House speaker vented frustration with the massive version of the legislation.
“In its present form without any changes I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” said Pelosi, D-Calif. “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.”
As Capitol Hill attempts to overcome the shock over Republican U.S. Senator-elect from Massachusetts Scott Brown’s earth-shattering victory last night, the upset appears to have left supporters of President Obama’s health care bill with few options to save the massive overhaul from defeat.
In his acceptance speech Tuesday night, Brown confirmed a primary theme of his campaign: that he would cast a critical 41st vote against the health care bill, leaving Democrats unable to surmount a Republican filibuster to destroy the measure. Brown defeated Democrat opponent Martha Coakley 52%-47% to overtake the seat held by Democratic icon Sen. Ted Kennedy for nearly 47 years.
“One thing is very, very clear as I traveled across this state. People do not want the trillion dollar health care plan that is being forced on the American people, and this bill is not being debated openly and fairly,” said Brown to cheering crowds. “It will raise taxes, it will hurt Medicare, it will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper in to debt.
“The independent majority has delivered a great victory.”
Many experts project that the Brown win will have catastrophic consequences for the health care overhaul, although Democrats are floating a few options. One of the most talked-about ideas has been to convince the House to pass the whole Senate bill unamended, thus allowing the bill to avoid a second Senate vote.
Leaders would then attempt to accommodate House Democrats’ interests in health care reform with a follow-up, separate budget bill, which would dodge the filibuster by requiring only 51 Senate votes through a process known as reconciliation.
It is unclear, however, how central House Democrat demands for health care reform – such as a more comprehensive public insurance option – could be resolved in a bill restricted purely to federal budget issues.
In pushing a giant step closer to a health care reform deal, Democratic leaders are once again drawing fire from their critics for extending special treatment to an interest group in exchange for its support of the bill.
In pushing a giant step closer to a health care reform deal, Democratic leaders are once again drawing fire from their critics for extending special treatment to an interest group in exchange for its support of the bill.
The latest deal was struck Thursday among the White House, Congress and union leaders over the proposed tax on high-value “Cadillac” health insurance plans.”
Unions had objected strongly to the proposed tax on high-value insurance policies, fearing it would hurt their members, and they won several concessions from the administration. Under the deal, if it becomes law, union workers will be shielded from the 40 percent tax for five years — until 2018. The threshold for the tax also was raised so that it will kick in for plans worth $24,000 instead of $23,000. And dental and vision coverage will not count toward that threshold.
But what about everybody else?
The unions, traditional supporters of the Democratic Party and a major factor in Obama’s political infrastructure, got a deal, but Republicans said that non-union workers will still have to pay the tax from the get-go starting in 2013.
“I guess this bill is only good if it doesn’t apply to you,” GOPAC Chairman Frank Donatelli said.
“Millions of non-union workers … would be forced to pay higher taxes for the same benefits their union counterparts” receive, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee said in a written statement.
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY — The health bills in Congress rob you of your constitutional rights. Here are five provisions (of many) that fail the constitutionality test and reveal Congress’s disrespect for the public:
* Section 3403 of the Senate health bill, establishing a commission to cut Medicare spending, says the law can’t be changed or repealed in the future. This whopper shows that Congress thinks its work should be set in stone. Wrong. The people always have the right to elect a new Congress to change or repeal what a previous Congress has done.
* A Senate health-bill amendment mysteriously allocates $100 million to an unnamed facility that “shall be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States that contains a state’s sole public academic medical and dental school” (Sec. 10502, p. 328-329). Why not name the facility?
This pork deal was arranged by Sen. Chris Dodd for the University of Connecticut Health Center, although 11 hospitals in the nation technically meet these specifications. If Congress wrote the provision in Polish or Russian to keep the public in the dark, it would be unconstitutional. The language is a deception. The fact that legislators commonly do this makes it more damaging, not less so.
* The bills require you to enroll in a “qualified health plan,” whether you want it or not. Forcing people to buy insurance obviously reduces the number of uninsured. But Congress doesn’t have the authority to force people to buy a product.
Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Nev.) said on the Senate floor, “If Congress may require individuals to purchase a particular good or service . . . We could simply require that Americans buy certain cars . . . for that matter, we could attack the problem of obesity by requiring Americans to buy fruits and vegetables.”
Some Congress members claim the “general welfare clause” of the Constitution empowers them to impose a mandate. But they’re taking the phrase out of context. The Constitution gives Congress power to tax and spend for the general welfare, but not to make other kinds of laws for the general welfare.
The Senate bill (pages 320-324) claims the “interstate commerce” clause of the Constitution gives Congress this authority. But for half a century, states have regulated health insurance. In fact, individuals are barred from buying insurance in any state except where they live, the antithesis of interstate commerce.
Congressional majorities have frequently resorted to the commerce clause to justify their lawmaking. In FDR’s first term, Congress cited it to pass the National Industrial Recovery Act, which gave the federal government power to micromanage local businesses, setting wages and hours and even barring customers from selecting their live chickens at the butcher. Two Brooklyn brothers, owners of Schechter Poultry Corp., a kosher chicken business, challenged that interference. In 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.
In 1995, the high court again admonished Congress against using the commerce clause as a basis for expanded lawmaking, even when the purpose is as worthy as keeping handguns out of a school zone (US v. Lopez). The court ruled that Congress must stick to its enumerated powers and leave states to police school zones (and, perhaps, mandate health insurance).
* Never before has the federal government intruded into decisions made by doctors for privately insured patients, except on narrow issues such as drug safety. Nothing in the Constitution permits it. But the Senate bill makes you enroll in a plan and then says that only doctors who do what the government dictates can be paid by your plan.
“Qualified plans” can contract only with a doctor who “implements such mechanisms to improve health-care quality as the [current or future] secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require” (Sec. 1311, p. 148-49). That covers all of medicine, from heart care to child birth, stents to mammograms.
* Finally, the “takings clause” of the Fifth Amendment bars government from taking your property without compensation. It should protect everyone, no matter how unpopular — even insurance companies, but Congress ignored it in writing the health bill. The Senate version goes beyond reining in insurance-company abuses, a just cause, and actually caps insurance-company profit margins at well below current levels, robbing shareholders.
President Obama repeatedly promised the American people that he planned to televise the health care reform negotiations on CSPAN. But the reality is that most of the most important negotiations that have taken place to date and are currently taking place in reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bills are occurring behind closed doors.
At 7:16 a.m., the Senate passed on a 60-39 party line vote a sweeping health care bill that will tighten insurance regulations, provide insurance for 31 million more Americans and cost $871 billion over the next decade.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy, aye,” said Sen. Robert Byrd as he cast his vote.
Clearly exhausted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voted no before changing his vote to yes, which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
After the vote, Reid joked, “I spent a very restless night last night trying to figure out how I could show some bipartisanship and I think I was able to accomplish that for a few minutes.”
Senate Republican Jim Bunning was absent for the vote.
With Vice President Joe Biden presiding over the session, Democrats gathered in the chamber before sunrise on the day before Christmas to cast a vote long in coming but in the end, hardly a surprise, a 60-39 tally that was the fourth time in as many days that Democrats proved they could muster the winning margin.
Reid opened the Senate floor at 7 a.m. and channeled Ted Kennedy: “The work goes on. The cause endures… and yet here we are, minutes away from doing what others have tried but none have achieved.”
Republican leader Mitch McConnell responded: “This fight isn’t over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. That’s the clear will of the American people — and we’re going to continue to fight on their behalf.”
Sen. DeMint Exposes Draconian Measure in Health Care Bill
Senator Reid Proposes Restrictions on Self-Governance
Senator Harry Reid has slipped language into the heath care bill, via an amendment that would tie the hands of future Congresses with regard to repealing or amending it. The amendment makes substantial changes to the standing rules of the Senate, a move that normally requires a super-majority vote of at least 67 Senators. When questioned about this by Senator DeMint, The Senate president ruled that the bill changes Senate procedure, but not Senate rules, so the 67 vote threshold did not apply. The unasked question that begs to follow is, “what establishes Senate procedures?” Answer: The rules.
Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment (page 1020) states that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The subsection pertains to regulations imposed by the Medicare Advisory Board. The amendment goes on to require a vote of 3/5 the Senate (60 votes) to waive the paragraph.
This posturing, setting some provisions of the law above others, so as to make them untouchable sets a dangerous precedent. It is the Constitution that is established as the supreme law of the land. The threshold for changing it was set high by the founders. Senator Reid and his cohorts are now attempting to enshrine provisions of their health care bill as above normal laws, and not subject to the normal democratic processes to change or repeal them.
DeMint observed, “I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this into every bill.”
Ed Morisey made the point well in his article: “The elected representatives of today should not have greater authority than those who will follow them. Any attempt to pass this into legislation aggrandizes the power of this Congress at the expense of those that follow.”
The proposed language of this health care amendment would, by simple majority vote, establish a requirement for a super majority to alter or repeal it. If this anti-democracy measure is allowed to stand, the implications for this and all future legislation are dire. Hundreds of years of established Congressional process will be subverted, the future will of the people, expressed by the election of their representatives, thwarted by unreasonable and unprecedented obstacles to our right of self-governance.
After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.
The vote was 60 to 40 — a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Both parties hailed the vote as seismic.
Democrats said it showed them poised to reshape the health system after decades of failed attempts.
“Health care in America ought to be a right, not a privilege,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. “Since the time of Harry Truman, every Congress, Republican and Democrat, every president, Democrat and Republican, have at least thought about doing this. Some actually tried.”
Republicans said that the bill was fatally flawed and that voters would retaliate against Democrats at the polls in November.
“It’s obvious why the majority has cooked up this amendment in secret, has introduced it in the middle of a snowstorm, has scheduled the Senate to come in session at midnight, has scheduled a vote for 1 a.m., is insisting that it be passed before Christmas — because they don’t want the American people to know what’s in it,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee.
Mr. Alexander added, “Our friends on the Democratic side seem determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake.”
Each side blamed the other for the extraordinary series of votes — at dawn Saturday, after midnight Monday, at dawn again on Tuesday, at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and finally on Christmas Eve, when most Americans will be sequestered for the holiday.
The Democrats charged the Republicans with obstinately throwing every procedural obstacle in their way, including filibusters and the full 30 hours of debate allowed under the rules after each filibuster is broken by a vote of 60 senators.
The Republicans charged the Democrats with recklessly rushing to adopt a dizzyingly complex 2,700-page bill that would affect virtually every American, and would reshape one-sixth of the nation’s economy at a cost of $871 billion over 10 years.
“If the Republicans want to exercise every single right they have under the rules, they can keep us here until Christmas Eve, no doubt about it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “But to what end, I ask? To what end? We’re going to have the vote at 1 a.m. that requires 60 votes, and then why stay here until Christmas Eve to do what they know we’re going to do?”
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said he and his colleagues had a duty to fight until the last minute.
“There is nothing inevitable about this,” Mr. Cornyn said. “The only thing I think inevitable about it is in the light of the unpopularity of what is being jammed down the throats of the American people, there will be a day of accounting. We don’t know when that day of accounting will be. Perhaps the first day of accounting will be Election Day 2010.”
Adoption of the legislation is not a certainty.
The Senate bill, once completed, must be reconciled with the bill adopted by the House last month, and there are substantial differences between the two. The House measure, for instance, includes a government-run health insurance plan, or public option, that was dropped from the Senate bill.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said the House would not just accept the Senate bill. And some Senate Democrats have warned that they could turn against the bill if changes made during negotiations with the House are not to their liking.
WASHINGTON – With a self-imposed Christmas deadline at stake, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid engineered a last-minute compromise in the health care debate that has won the support of the lone Democratic holdout and clinched the required 60 votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care system.
Marathon negotiations among the White House, Senate Democratic leaders and Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, produced fresh concessions that will mean additional abortion restrictions in the legislation and funding to cover poor people for Nelson’s state and more.
“I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree. But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions,” Nelson said at a news conference in the Capitol.
Democratic leaders offered Nelson a deal similar to the $300 million in Medicaid assistance Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana got for her support, numerous sources told Fox News.
When asked about this, Sen. Kent Conrad, a key Democratic leader involved in the negotiations with Nelson, said, “Oh, it’ll be much more.”
Obama devoted his weekend radio and Internet address to the issue he campaigned on in 2008.
“Now — for the first time — there is a clear majority in the Senate that’s willing to stand up to the insurance lobby and embrace lasting health insurance reforms that have eluded us for generations,” Obama said. “Let’s bring this long and vigorous debate to an end.”
According to the health care reform bill being debated in the U.S. Senate, there’s an easy way to solve the problem of the uninsured in this country:
1. Force Americans to buy health insurance just like we do with auto insurance.
2. Make insurance companies accept everyone who applies, including those who buy insurance only when they’re sick.
3. Don’t let insurance companies sell plans that don’t cover everything.
These three forms of health insurance regulation-individual mandates, guaranteed issue and coverage mandates-have been attempted in a number of states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington. The results are described below.
Individual mandates: “You’ll buy it or else.”
A popular theme in the healthcare reform debate is “shared responsibility.” Attempting to increase individual responsibility, a number of states have enacted a mandate that all citizens must purchase health insurance.
The theory behind individual mandates is that insurance becomes more affordable when purchased by a larger, healthier group of applicants. Adding individuals to the risk pool who are less expensive to insure (and currently the least likely to buy it) would theoretically lower the cost for all those insured.
But in practice, individual mandates have had a different effect on what people pay for health insurance. The impact of mandates on insurance premiums is in large part a consequence of “Guaranteed Issue” described below.
Part of the problem with individual mandates is enforcement. Voters have consistently rejected mandates that would use the tax code or wage garnishment to ensure compliance.
Without “teeth,” mandates provide no compelling reason to purchase expensive, unwanted insurance policies before an individual becomes ill. And even harsh penalties would miss the unemployed and non-citizens, who represent a large percentage of the growth in the uninsured.
This has the effect of driving up costs as less-healthy individuals requiring expensive treatment expand the insurance pool, while healthy individuals avoid buying policies.
Some proponents of individual mandates try to make an analogy to the auto insurance industry. But this is not a logical comparison:
Auto insurance is mandated only for those who drive, a far smaller pool than those who would be mandated to buy health insurance.
Consumers shopping for auto insurance have competition on their side; policies can be purchased from insurance companies offered in other states, driving down premiums as agencies try to compete with other carriers. Inexpensive policies are available across state lines, unlike health insurance plans sold only within a single state. Bostonians are prohibited from buying North Dakota health plans that cost 60% less than those sold in Massachusetts.
Limited coverage auto insurance policies can be purchased, offering only the liability coverage required by law rather than more expensive comprehensive plans. Under California’s Low Cost Auto Insurance Program, premiums can be less than $25 per month. State regulations bar the health insurance industry from offering low-cost plans with limited coverage even when the consumer wants that choice.
Despite the fact that all 50 states mandate auto insurance coverage for drivers, up to 25% of state residents remain uninsured. Even with far simpler opportunities available for enforcing the auto insurance mandate (e.g., requiring proof of coverage before obtaining a driver’s license and registration), the California Department of Insurance estimated in 2003 that 14.3% of all registered vehicles were uninsured. This does not account for unregistered vehicles or those with expired registrations, of particular importance in parts of the state with a high percentage of undocumented immigrants on the road.
Governor Mitt Romney succeeded in imposing an individual government mandate on the citizens of Massachusetts. Taxpayers in that state now fund subsidies for insurance premiums that have risen more than 30% since the Governor’s plan was enacted.
Individual mandates, though popular in political rhetoric, do not address the fundamental problem people face when buying health insurance: it is expensive.
How desperate has the White House become to get anything passed under the name of health-care reform? According to Michael Goldfarb’s source on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration has targeted the last remaining Democratic holdout, at least among moderates — and they’re willing to damage national security to extort his support. The White House has threatened Ben Nelson (D-NE) with the closure of Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska if he opposes Reid’s latest version, despite its status as the headquarters of US Strategic Command:
According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line.
Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.” They are “threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?” asked the Senate staffer.
Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.
The Obama administration has little left to use for leverage. Why not national security? After all, if we’re going to bring terrorists into Illinois, what does it matter if we put the US Strategic Command on wheels for a few years?
On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”
It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping — the bill survived Saturday’s procedural test without a single vote to spare — and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn’t enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.
After Landrieu threw in her support (she asserted that the extra Medicaid funds were “not the reason” for her vote), the lone holdout in the 60-member Democratic caucus was Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Like other Democratic moderates who knew a single vote could kill the bill, she took a streetcar named Opportunism, transferred to one called Wavering and made off with concessions of her own. Indeed, the all-Saturday debate, which ended with an 8 p.m. vote, occurred only because Democratic leaders had yielded to her request for more time.
Even when she finally announced her support, at 2:30 in the afternoon, Lincoln made clear that she still planned to hold out for many more concessions in the debate that will consume the next month. “My decision to vote on the motion to proceed is not my last, nor only, chance to have an impact on health-care reform,” she announced.
Landrieu and Lincoln got the attention because they were the last to decide, but the Senate really has 100 Blanche DuBoises, a full house of characters inclined toward the narcissistic. The health-care debate was worse than most. With all 40 Republicans in lockstep opposition, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus had to vote yes — and that gave each one an opportunity to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician and author of one of the first health care reform bills introduced this year – the Patients’ Choice Act – released the following statement tonight after voting against a procedural motion that will help Congress enact a massive, budget-busting government-run health care bill.
“This bill is the most reckless, irresponsible and dishonest piece of legislation I have seen in my time in Congress. I’m disappointed my colleagues voted for a bill that will bust the budget, increase taxes, coerce taxpayers into funding abortion, and grant politicians and bureaucrats the power to ration and deny medically-necessary care,” Dr. Coburn said.
While many Senators who voted for this measure called it a harmless procedural vote, experts disagree. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, bills that pass procedural tests like the one tonight have a 97.6 percent chance of passing the Senate.
“The accounting tricks in this bill would make Bernie Madoff and Enron executives blush,” Dr. Coburn said. “The bill’s author, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), makes the outlandish claim that this bill ‘saves’ money over ten years. However, he fails to inform the American people that benefits won’t begin for four years while taxes will increase immediately. This would be like a mortgage banker demanding payments for four years before allowing a family to move into their new home. These gimmicks insult the intelligence of every American.”
“Once implemented, the Reid bill will cost at least $2.5 trillion over ten years. Creating a costly new entitlement while we face the risk of a double-dip recession is the height of irresponsibility. Every major government-run health care program is broke or is headed for bankruptcy. Medicare alone faces a long-term debt of $89.3 trillion, which is about six times the size of our entire economy,” Dr. Coburn said. “History shows that great nations collapse over loose fiscal policy, not external threats. The scope of our debt and our reliance on borrowing from potential adversaries, such a China, is a serious national security threat to the United States. This bill will make us more vulnerable and more dependent on excessive and unsustainable borrowing.”
“The bill’s mandate that all Americans must buy insurance is an unconstitutional and unworkable assault on individual liberty and personal responsibility. If this bill passes millions of younger, healthy Americans will saves thousands of dollars every year by dropping coverage until they get sick. The low penalties of not buying coverage in the bill combined with assurances that no one can be denied coverage will push younger and healthier Americans out of the system, leaving older Americans to endure skyrocketing costs,” Dr. Coburn said, noting that eleven studies from government and private sources show health care premiums will increase faster because of the policies in the Reid bill.
“The Reid bill also takes a historic step toward forcing every American taxpayer to finance abortion. The bill gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to include elective abortions in the government-run and taxpayer-funded ‘public option,’ which is a radical departure from the federal government’s current policy of not funding abortion with public funds,” Dr. Coburn said.
“Sadly, this bill’s lack of respect for life doesn’t end with coercing public funding for abortion. The bill gives bureaucrats the ability to deny coverage on the basis of cost, not care. For instance, the bill specifically authorizes the Secretary of HHS to deny payments for prevention services the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended against. This is the same task force that recently suggested women under 50 should not receive annual mammograms. As a practicing physician, such decisions should be made by a doctor and her physician, not a politician or bureaucrat in Washington,” Dr. Coburn said.
From DickMorris.com
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she does not have the votes to pass the Senate’s version of a health insurance bill that is now in severe jeopardy of being scrapped.
As Capitol Hill attempts to overcome the shock over Republican U.S. Senator-elect from Massachusetts Scott Brown’s earth-shattering victory last night, the upset appears to have left supporters of President Obama’s health care bill with few options to save the massive overhaul from defeat.
In pushing a giant step closer to a health care reform deal, Democratic leaders are once again drawing fire from their critics for extending special treatment to an interest group in exchange for its support of the bill.
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY — The health bills in Congress rob you of your constitutional rights. Here are five provisions (of many) that fail the constitutionality test and reveal Congress’s disrespect for the public:
At 7:16 a.m., the Senate passed on a 60-39 party line vote a sweeping health care bill that will tighten insurance regulations, provide insurance for 31 million more Americans and cost $871 billion over the next decade.
By David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear
From 
How desperate has the White House become to get anything passed under the name of health-care reform? According to 
On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician and author of one of the first health care reform bills introduced this year – the 
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