[Originally posted on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at RedState.com. Vote has now been schedule for 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21]
A defining moment is coming in this year’s health care debate.
Yesterday, Democrat leaders announced they may soon bring Harry Reid’s new health care bill to the Senate floor in an effort to grant the President’s wish for a government takeover of our nation’s health care by Christmas. This is in spite of the fact that 99 senators have never seen Reid’s new bill that was written in secret. Reid even hinted he may rush to a vote before the bill’s been public for 72 hours, as even Democrats have demanded.
To begin debate on this new version of Obamacare, Reid will play a shell game. He needs 60 senators to “vote to proceed” to an unrelated piece of legislation, and once he clears that hurdle he will strike that bill’s text and insert his new health care bill. But don’t be fooled by senators that will say they oppose a government takeover but just wanted to allow debate on health care, they are not being honest.
The simple fact is this: Any senator that votes to proceed to the Reid-Obama bill is voting for a government takeover of health care...
Late Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released his own version of a health care bill that if passed will raise taxes, increase premiums, cut Medicare and lead to health care rationing. It's imperative that freedom-loving Americans everywhere raise their voices in opposition to this bill. It truly represents a government takeover of health care.
Sen. DeMint goes "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren to discuss the "pink slips" being sent to Capitol Hill and the ongoing health care battle in the Senate:
Late Saturday night the House voted to pass 220-215 to pass Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "ObamaCare" proposal. Her version increases taxes to European-high levels while cutting Medicaid and destroying the public insurance market. Last week, The Wall Street Journaldeclared it the "worst bill ever" and this week WSJ details the many problems the bill creates:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied policy logic and public opinion late Saturday night, ramming through the House a nearly 2,000-page health-care leviathan that counts as the biggest expansion of the federal government since the New Deal. As President Obama likes to say, this was a "teachable moment" about our current government.
The vote was 220 to 215, with 39 House Democrats joining all but one Republican in opposition. Mrs. Pelosi had to cajole and bribe her way to the magic 218, and the list of her promises must be stacked to the ceiling.
The lone Republican, Joseph Cao, represents a Democratic-leaning Louisiana district and extracted a promise that Mr. Obama would increase Medicaid payments to his state, and even then he only voted after Democrats had already hit 218. Let no one suggest this was the "bipartisan" health reform that Mr. Obama has long promised.
The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of "universal health care." It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens. The insurance industry will have to vet every policy with Washington, which will regulate who it must cover, what it can offer, and how much it can charge...
This week the House considers a health care plan put forth by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The bill increases spending by TRILLIONS, guts private Medicaid, expands Medicare, raises taxes to European-levels, and takes over private insurance.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.
In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.
Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity...
Today, all 40 Republican senators wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) asking that in the interest of full transparency, as promised by President Obama, that he immediately release the new Senate Democrat health care bill to the American public.
Hon. Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Leader,
On Monday, you announced that you had sent health care legislation to the Congressional Budget office (CBO). As you know, this legislation will have a profound impact on the lives of every American, including the next generation who will be forced to pay for it. Our national debt stands at nearly $12 trillion, with a deficit of $1.4 trillion. The health care bill will likely be more than 1,000 pages long and is the single most important legislation we will consider and debate this year in Congress.
With an issue this large and complex, we need full transparency at every stage in the legislative process. President Obama was elected, in part, on his promise to bring greater transparency to the workings of the federal government. The American people and every member of Congress should be allowed to read the bill that was sent to CBO. The bill should be made available for taxpayers to read and learn how the federal government is spending their money. We are writing to request that you immediately make all materials sent to CBO publicly available on the internet.
A new, comprehensive, 14-state study from the insurance company, WellPoint, shows that if ObamaCare is implemented, the cost of private insurance could triple for families and small businesses.
Washington is captivated by the Senate melodrama over the so-called public option, salivating at the ring of Harry Reid's political bell (see below). But the most important health-care questions continue to be about the policy substance—particularly those that Democrats don't want asked.
Foremost among them is: How will ObamaCare affect insurance premiums in the private health-care markets? Despite indignant Democratic denials, the near-certainty is that their plan will cause costs to rise across the board. The latest data on this score come from a series of state-level studies from the insurance company WellPoint Inc...
"By 58% to 38%, Americans would generally prefer to see Congress deal with healthcare reform 'on a gradual basis over several years' rather than 'try to pass a comprehensive reform plan this year.'"
As Senate negotiations continue on the government overhaul of America’s health care system, the issue of federal funding for abortion still remains. Despite President Obama’s assertions to the contrary, the health care takeover would expand federal funding for abortions under the Democrats’ current proposal. Chairman Max Baucus’ bill, recently approved by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, passed without language explicitly prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund elective abortions. Conservative lawmakers have offered several amendments in markups of health care reform legislation to prevent coverage of abortion, but all were voted down in committee.
The only way to prevent the health care bill from using American taxpayer dollars to fund abortions, is for the Senate to add provisions explicitly prohibiting coverage and funding of abortion in the final version of the bill. Such prohibitions are absolutely necessary to protect taxpayers who are morally opposed to having the government use their hard earned money for the coverage of abortion procedures. I encourage my fellow Americans who believe in protecting the unborn to reach out to their Members of Congress in an effort to make their voices heard as Washington considers health care reform over the coming weeks.
