As everyone knows by now, the House of Representatives passed HR 3962 between 11:00 p.m. and midnight EST last night by a vote of 220-215. That's one of the narrowest margins of legislative "victory" on record, though not the narrowest. The Clinton tax increases hold that record--and we all know what happened as a direct, though not immediate, consequence of that vote.
Laying aside for the moment the likely fate of those 219 House Democrats (and Representative Anh Joseph Cao, R-LA-2), let us remember that the bill now has to go to the Senate. And its prospects there are far from certain.
AP reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar frankly admits as much:
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, [President] Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."
The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.
And that doesn't even include Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), who refuses to consider any measure having a direct government-run insurance plan, and has said so repeatedly.
This might explain why Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Majority Floor Leader, has not even scheduled any debate on health-care reform in the Senate and has suggested that no vote is likely to come until next year.
Of course, the Senate could in theory use "reconciliation" to pass health-care reform by a simple majority. But "reconciliation," as per the Byrd Rule, can apply only to budgetary matters. Health-care reform is a lot larger than any budget. Worse yet for the Democrats, anything passed under reconciliation has a life span of ten years. That could never be acceptable for Democrats bent on enacting socialism in any form.
So the Senate would have to repeal the Byrd Rule. But to do that they need to change the Senate's rules. How likely they would be able to do that is a very open question.
So what has the House accomplished? Merely to delay the inevitable, and to put half the House, and all but one of them Democrats, on record as being inherently inimical to human liberty less than a year in advance of mid-term elections. Brilliant.
In fact, a scenario like this played out thirty-five hundred years ago:
So the taskmasters of the people and their foremen went out and spoke to the people, saying, "Thus says Pharaoh, 'I am not going to give you any straw. You go and get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, but none of your labor will be reduced.'"
So the people scattered through all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. The taskmasters pressed them, saying, "Complete your work quota, your daily amount, just as when you had straw."
Moreover, the foremen of the sons of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, "Why have you not completed your required amount either yesterday or today in making brick as previously?"
Then the foremen of the sons of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, "Why do you deal this way with your servants? There is no straw given to your servants, yet they keep saying to us, 'Make bricks!' And behold, your servants are being beaten; but it is the fault of your own people."
But he said, "You are lazy, very lazy; therefore you say, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.' So go now and work; for you will be given no straw, yet you must deliver the quota of bricks."
The foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in trouble because they were told, "You must not reduce your daily amount of bricks." (Exodus 5:10-19, NASB)
And we all know how that scenario played out, do we not?
Comments
So It took few weeks to pass the trillion dollar stimulus bill to bail out the irresponsible banks/institutions w/out any major opposition.
Yet when it comes to health care, trillion dollar over 10 years is a big issue? What am I missing in here? Am I not healthy enough to understand the issue in here?
@Adam King, your health is probably OK. It's just that the principled opposition hadn't had time to solidify against that bank bailout.
The other thing to remember is this: if your government comes between you and your bank teller, what do you care? After all, a bank teller sits behind a counter all day. But when it's your *doctor* they're talking about...!
Besides, no one's talking about putting you in jail for not buying your own personal deposit insurance.
Anyway, the point's been made, and the problem with the bank bailout isn't lost on people anymore.
I am a Registered Nurse, and am currently 2 semesters away from being a Nurse Practitioner. I work in 3 seperate facilities, and polled other nurses... The majority of nurses polled (83%) indicated that if the healthcare bill passes the Senate, they will be looking to leave the healthcare industry and make a career change. Socialized medicine is an unattractive option for everyone except the parasites in this country. I refuse to work 10 times as hard for the same amount of money. We already have a SEVERE shortage of nurses, and this bill if passed, will further augment that growing problem... Good luck getting quality healthcare if the reform passes!!!
Adam...You are missing a lot. Wow....what a dangerous moron,,,,lets just get on with the 2nd civil war already,,,,
@Michelle: Thanks for that on-the-ground poll. Add to it that Investors' Business Daily polled doctors, and 45% of them said that they'd leave. Now anyone may say what he will about how 55% of them would stay. But I don't think any of us thinks that the present conventional health-care system can survive if 45% of the doctors, and 83% of the nurses, quit their jobs.
This sounds like a setup right out of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, and specifically "Directive 10-289," the first point of which said that anyone quitting his job would go to jail, and that all persons, upon achieving their age of majority, must report to a federal quasi-judicial body for job assignments. Is that what the government will think of next? I'd say that a lot of Miss Rand's detractors now owe her an apology.
And speaking of apologies: I see no "morons" in this comment space. Maybe someone here hasn't kept up with the news, but that doesn't mean that he can't do it, but just that he hasn't done it til
@ michelle - good luck finding anothre job in the economy. @ - the millionaire doctors - time for a pay cut. I paid $400 to a specialist for 5 minutes. How is that right? That's almost $100 per minute. The specialists are robbing us blind. There should be a salary cap for them. I say no more than $100 per 5 minutes, its still highway robbery though.
@Kevin: I could point out that that $400 fee goes to pay for malpractice-insurance premiums, cost of licensure and renewal, and cost of paperwork compliance, among other things that this bill doesn't even pretend to address.
But I can't stop there.
Instead, I would ask you what right you have to dictate to that specialist how much you or any other patient is going to pay him.
And I'll answer for you: You have no such right, not under natural law or any common-law tradition with which I am familiar. And you certainly do not have that right under the Constitution. And as before, I would never support a Constitutional amendment granting that right to you, or anyone.
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