Health Care Reform Passes House in the Dead of Night
The vote count for the House version of health care reform was very narrow, 220 for, 215 against. All but one Republican, he being Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted against the health care reform bill. Thirty nine Democrats also voted against the House version of health care reform.
The spectacle of the House passing a health care bill over the objections of the majority of the American people cannot be over emphasized. Unprecedented numbers of phone calls, emails, and letters had poured into Congress urging that the health care bill be voted down. Thursday, a protest had taken place on the steps of the Capitol, attended by as many as twenty thousand people, chanting, "Kill the bill!"
The degree of arm twisting and leg breaking that took place behind closed doors by Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership may never be fully documented. What is pretty clear are the depths of contempt that House Democrats have for the American people, especially the majority who opposed the health care bill. According to the New York Times:
"Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, 'Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit' Democratic voters 'and it will encourage the extremists.'"
Think about the argument President Obama used behind closed doors. Voting down health care reform would only encouraged people who opposed it, which happens to be the majority of the American people, who are, after all, "tea bag", "anti government", and "extremists."
The problem with the President's somewhat nakedly political reasoning is that Democratic members in swing districts may not have been helped if health care reform had not passed the House, many of them will be, in effect, falling on their own political swords now that it has.
Some estimates of the cost of the House version of health care reform bill go as high as an extra three trillion dollars added to the deficit. Provisions to raise taxes, slash Medicare, and mandate that people buy health care insurance on pain of prison tucked away in the nearly two thousand pages of legislative jargon are at once mind numbing and blood chilling. As Congressman Kevin Brady said, it is as if the IRS and Medicare had mated and had a baby.
The bitter irony is that the health care reform debate now goes to the Senate, where a completely different bill is evolving. The narrow passage of health care reform in the House, along with the results of the 2009 elections, will weigh even heavier on the minds of wavering Democrats and fence sitters. If health care reform passes the Senate, and that is by no means certain, it will look nothing like the House version. Then would come the House Senate Conference and work on the real health care reform bill would begin.
Sources: Pelosicare Vote Coming Tonight, Allahpundit, Hot Air, November 7th, 2009
Lawmakers Detail Obama's Pitch, Jackie Calmes, New York Times, November 7th, 2009
Gregg: CBO cost estimate of Pelosi Plan $3 trillion, Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, November 7th, 2009
PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail, Congressman David Camp, House Ways and Means Committee Republicans, November 6th, 2009
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX): "If the IRS and Medicare Had a Baby, It Would Look Like This" , Kevin Boland, House GOP Leader Blog, November 7th, 2009
Published by Mark Whittington
Mark R. Whittington is a writer residing in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Last Moonwalker, Children of Apollo, Dark Sanction, and Nocturne. He has written numerous articles, some for the Washington... View profile
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11 Comments
Post a Commentif you are too dumb to understand the health care problems, then you are too dumb to be a voting American...people are dieing because they cant afford doctors. I know this first hand. doctors will let you die based on your lack of ability to pay their outrageous prices...Thats wrong and only rednack skinhead types need thing to stay this way...
Healthcare reform means to make it better for all...come on people! You all know we need better healthcare for all. Perhaps cost will decrease for people who already have it. Be happy for change!
Theft? Yes Republicans do look at voting as theft, cause they try to steal elections. This time it didn't work. Don't get a major illness.. cause if you do your insurance will not cover all the bills. They don't care about the patient, they care about profit. Healthcare reform now!
"In the dead of night." As if they snuck it through when no one was watching. You're hilarious!
Can we still stop this now that it's passed the House? Doesn't it have to go to the Senate, too? Please comment as if that's correct. Thank you!
You write bullshit!...
Where is the thumbs down option on this piece? What a lot of hooha from those folks who do not know what is in the bill but just blindly rely on the anti-reform propaganda of untruths we have been deluged with. Are all of the opponents of reform idiots or in the pay of the insurance companies? Anyone who thinks the current U.S. system of health care is the best in the world needs to go look at the facts. As for gov't running of health care, what do they think Medicare is? And unless you are really wealthy, guess what you are going to be under when you are a senior. Get real people, we needed this bill.
Stop complaining about health care costs. Get a job and work. Or get a better job. Lazy americans want everything for nothing. That is the true problem here.
I can't believe what fact-distorting propaganda is being sold as "journalism" here. From where do you get the "fact" that the majority of Americans are against the health care reform? How can you attribute a quote to Obama that you only heard from a secondary source? Where do the estimates come from that the extra costs of the bill might be up to 3 trillion dollars? This whole article is full of fear-mongering lies and propaganda. No wonder that journalism is in a crisis with people who write and publish stuff like this. Shame, shame, shame...
How is it theft when every member was there to vote?