From the Wall Street Journal:
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world’s greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new “manager’s amendment” that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what’s in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.
……The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that “reform” has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598130440164954.html
So, what just transpired was a spit in the face of the American people. The Democrats don’t even care what’s in this train wreck, they just want to pass it as another step toward government-controlled health care; a system to which they will never subject themselves. You can bet your ass members of Senate and Congress will never tolerate the lengthy wait and deteriorated state of medical care they want to inflict on their constituents.
There are so many reckless flaws in this latest bill, not the least of which are deep cuts in Medicare, a substantial rise in taxpayer subsidies, an increase in health care costs, a decline in the quality of care, and a severe restriction of choice. The government will determine if, when, and how you will be treated, especially if you are seriously ill.
The arrogance and hubris of this socialist regime is astounding. These megalomaniacs are perfectly willing to flush our economy and health care down the toilet to acquire power over life and death decisions.
They had help; Mary Landrieu (D,LA) took a 3,000,000 bribe and Bill Nelson (D,NV) took a Cornhusker kickback in the form of a promise that Nevada would be exempted from Medicare cuts, forever. They also coerced Pharma and cut deals with the AMA.
If this disaster gets passed into law, the best we can hope for is a 2010 House and Senate cleaning of the scum that damaged this country. The next administration should rescind this insane bullshit and pass a health care bill that preserves the rights of individuals to choose their own private insurance, enacts tort reform, and lessens the burden on the American taxpayer.
Americans will never stand for this. The democrats have just put the last nail in their political coffin.
Consider the Tea Party protests of 2009 a dress rehearsal.
Related posts:
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/more-transparency-from-the-dems/
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/jacob-hackers-trojan-horse/