forgottenliberty.com

Despite President Obama’s recent rhetoric about reaching out to Republicans and getting their input on health care reform, a sneaky plan is underway to pass health care without any help from Republicans.  Wendell Primus, the top health care adviser to Nancy Pelosi, believes it can be passed by Easter.  If I’m understanding the complicated and tricky plan correctly, the House would pass the Senate bill, Obama would sign the Senate bill, then the House would pass another bill changing the Senate version.  According to Anna Edney of CongressDaily,

House Speaker Pelosi’s top healthcare adviser today outlined a plan that would allow both chambers to make changes to the Senate healthcare overhaul before the overhaul becomes law.

Wendell Primus said the plan is to have President Obama sign the Senate bill before signing the legislation making the changes, even though Congress will approve them in reverse to satisfy skeptical House members who refuse to pass the Senate bill before changes are made.

“The trick in all of this is that the president would have to sign the Senate bill first, then the reconciliation bill second, and the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill,” Wendell Primus, told health policy experts gathered at the National Health Policy Conference hosted by AcademyHealth and Health Affairs.

Some have questioned whether rules would allow Congress to pass changes to a bill that is not yet law. House members have insisted both chambers approve the changes, which likely will go through the reconciliation process to require 51 votes rather than the 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, before they pass they Senate bill.

[snip]

Negotiators first must agree on changes.

The Senate parliamentarian still needs to weigh in, he added.

Despite all these complications, Primus said, lawmakers will be “very close to being done” with an overhaul by Easter recess.

The 2000 plus page health care bill does not appear to be dead as most of us had hoped.  I’m not sure if this whole process can be pulled off or even if it is legal, but it does show how desperate Progressives like Pelosi are to have a government takeover of our health care system.

It’s all Bush’s Rahm Emanuel’s fault!  Democrats, angry about the collapse of health care reform, are breaking from their usual mantra of blaming everything on George Bush, and are turning their attention to Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.  Instead of correctly realizing that the American people do not want more government involvement in their health care, Democrats are looking for another scapegoat to put the blame on.  According to The Hill,

The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor

Why do liberals always need someone to blame?  Why can’t they take responsibility for their actions and admit that the American people are rejecting a socialist/progressive agenda?  I’m no fan of Emanuel, but to put the blame on him for the health care debacle is wrong.  According to the same article from The Hill,

Many people have criticized President Obama for being a little self absorbed.  It is true that he refers to himself and his accomplishments a lot when giving speeches, but a speech at  the Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Washington may take the cake.  While giving a pitch for his health care plan, he refers to a letter he received about a woman who had died of breast cancer.  We don’t know her name, because Obama either chose not to use it, or he forgot it.  I don’t know why he would not at least use her first name.  However, he was not using a teleprompter, so I think he forgot it.  What is surprising about this woman, is that she was buried in an Obama t-shirt.  While this may seem a little disturbing to some, Obama almost seems proud of it.  According to Byron York of the Washington Examiner,

Many observers have noted that the president often seems extraordinarily self-referential. It’s all about him, they say. But even those critics might be a little taken aback by the “buried in an Obama t-shirt” remark. Is it really that much about him?

If Obama had left out the being “buried in an Obama t-shirt” part, this woman’s story would have been more effective in making his point, but if Obama is truly self absorbed, it would be impossible for him not to include this little piece of information about an unnamed woman.  Watch the following video for yourself and come to your own conclusion about Obama’s level of egocentricity.  Besides the t-shirt part, notice at the end of the clip how Obama denies that the American people have rejected his health care plan.  He claims that Americans actually want his health care plan, they just don’t like the “sausage making” process in Washington.  While Obama is correct in stating that people don’t like how things are done in DC, he is incorrect in stating that Americans want his health care plan.  In fact, 61% of Americans want Congress to drop health care.  I think he is in denial about this.  Of course, that goes along with being self absorbed.

With Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the only viable option left to Democrats in regards to health care is for the house to pass the Senate version of the bill without making any changes to it.  I thought there was a good chance of this happening, but I may have been wrong.  A day or two ago, Nancy Pelosi seemed very confident that the Congress would pass health care legislation in time for Obama’s State of the Union.  However, today she made an interesting statement about health care,

I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” Pelosi told reporters after a morning meeting with her caucus. “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.

If the House doesn’t pass the Senate version of the bill in it’s entirety, an amended bill would have to be sent back to the Senate for passage.  The Democrats, thanks to Scott Brown and the voters of Massachusetts, no longer have the 60 votes needed to stop a Republican filibuster, so an amended bill would most likely die in the Senate.  This means there is little chance of health care passing.

Is it possible that the 2000 plus page health care bill is finally dead?  After all the angry town hall meetings and protests, after all the polls showing plummeting support for the legislation along with plummeting support for Obama and Congress.. is it really over?  Have enough democrats in the House woken up to the fact that they were destroying their political careers by following the Obama, Pelosi, and Reid agenda?  It appears so, but I am still a little skeptical.  While I am hopeful that this battle is finally won, it’s still a little to early to celebrate.  Never underestimate liberal trickery.

Wouldn’t it be great though if health care was given it’s final blow by the Democrat stronghold of Massachusetts?

Why are the Democrats so insistent on passing the current health care bill?  Is it to ensure coverage for all Americans?  No, because the current bill will still leave 23 million people uninsured.  That’s the entire combined population of Pennsylvania and Ohio left without insurance.

Is it because the American people are in favor of the legislation?  No, because only 40% of Americans are in favor of the current bill with only 19% strongly in favor of it.  55% oppose the bill with 45% strongly opposed.

Is it to lower health care costs for all Americans?  No, because this bill will actually raise health care costs by 289 billion dollars over the next 10 years.  Even Democrat Senator Mark Warner admitted that the Senate bill (which raises costs less than the house bill) doesn’t do enough to reduce costs,

“On cost containment, this bill moves the ball to the opponent’s 30-yard line, but it doesn’t score,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who has taken a leading role in trying to squeeze more savings. “We didn’t move as far as I would have liked.”

So if this bill does not cover everyone, does not have the support of the American people, and does not reduce our health care costs, why are Democrats so desperate to pass it?  I can give you the answer in one word— power.

On January 19th, Massachusetts will hold a special election to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat.  If this seat is won by the Republican candidate, Scott Brown, Obama will no longer have a 60 seat majority in the Senate o do his will.  This could prevent the current health care bill from passing a final cloture vote in the senate and becoming law!

Now I know what most of you are thinking, ” How could a Republican win Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat?  Never in a million years!”  I must admit I was thinking the same thing until I saw a new poll from Public Policy Polling.  It shows that Republican Scott Brown is now 1 point ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley.  This is within the margin of error and makes this race a toss up between the 2 candidates.  This is startling to me and shows how even the people of an extremely liberal state are becoming angry with the Democrat controlled Congress and the White House.  Another shocking fact in this poll is that Republican Scott Brown is winning 17% of Democrats in the state while Democrat Martha Coakley is only winning 6% of the GOP vote.  Independents are also preferring Brown over Coakley, 63% to 31% respectively.  This is a winnable race for the Republican!

If Brown pulls off this election, the repercussions will be huge.  It would most likely cause