[Nateman]

Jan 19 is another chance to send the RATS a message.It's the special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Imagine if the voters are so mad the RATS lose the seat in MASSACHUSETTS? It would not only strip them of the critical 60th vote but truly terrorize the Rats and Rino's.

Of course a win would be absolutely unprecedented but then again with 17% real unemployment , the Country hugely in debt and a power hungry congress intent on ignoring the People I think we have a chance. The real problem is putting an end to "the fix". They WILL try and steal it.

If you live in Mass. volunteer to be an election judge and get to know election law. Work in a RAT district . They probably don't have many Republicans there. Learn how elections are stolen and what to look for. Pulling out a win in this hornets nest of commies would be just the thing to save America.

[Brandonmark]

The Democratic Party will NOT, I repeat will NOT allow their cherished health care plan to be derailed. Trust me, there will be a health care bill signed sealed and delivered before the midterm elections. Yeh, all kinds of things have to happen for it to become law, but it will happen. They CANNOT afford to lose the griphold they have on our country or risk their control to be loosened in any way. To the Democrats, POWER is their major motivation and if something happened to their bill it would be completely unacceptable to their major special interests (e.g. organized labor, feminists, blacks, environmentalists, and socialists). Not being pessimistic...just realistic!

[JimWayne]

Agreed that there is one more 60-threshold vote, but this vote too should have been stalled. One has to use every tactic to prevent socialism. I am not as hopeful as you are for the final vote. I think Olympia Snowe will defect and use Lieberman’s defection in this round as an excuse. They won’t take responsibility for ushering in socialism and will point that they voted against the bill in one of the two cloture votes.

[DennisR]

Panic is in order. Congress is inept, irresponsible, insane, and derelict. If we do not panic now, it will be too late. Call, fax, email, write. Tell them you will campaign against them during their next election - then do it. And show up in D.C. on the day of the State of the Union Address in January for a massive protest.

http://pushbackuntil.com

[praepos]

You are right, this one vote is not the end of this thing. But you are wrong to focus only on the public option. That’s actually been a red herring all along. The real problem is with the comprehensive structure of the bill itself. It sets up over a hundred bureaucracies ready to put a stranglehold on the industry, including a health commission with the power to make health decisions belonging primarily to physicians and their patients. These bureaucrats would indeed begin rationing care. They will most certainly begin dictating parameters for insurance companies designed to raise costs and produce higher premiums while reducing the quality of health care generally. The bill will raise taxes and increase the deficit alarmingly. There will almost certainly be a pro-choice provision. Worst of all, it would forever reverse the role of citizens and public servants. It is a frontal attack on our most basic freedoms—and it destroys our privacy absolutely in matters of the gravest intimacy. It’s an abomination, with or without the public option. It must be defeated—and it will be. If not in Congress, then in the Courts. If not there, then by constitutional amendment. It will not stand.

[nutmeg]

bookmark

[ThePatriotsFlag]

I'm wondering if this isn't actually a time for a (very quiet) celebration for Conservatives. We have a senate vote SOLID DEMOCRAT for this, SOLID REPUBLICAN against it (who the hell knows what Lieberman thinks or who Voinovich was "out with" tonight). But the Dems are now FULLY EXPOSED as united behind Obama and Socialism. People don't want this health care bill, they want jobs and no more added to the deficit. This bill, as it is debated, will show the DEMS voted against BOTH of these things the American People want.

Celebration? (yes, but quietly!) ... this is exactly what we needed to expose the Democrats for what and who they are. Landreiu's base (catholic) is going to go nuts that she supported a bill with abortion in it. People are going to finally look at the YEA votes and see Leiberman in that column and recall that Harry Reid threatened him with losing his committee chairmanship if he didn't vote for this. The corruption is there for people to see and the "internals" of this bill are horrible and will be exposed.

Tomorrow, there will be more "independents" than there were today ... and the "self-destruction" these DEMS are doing is breathtaking to watch. There was a time I thought we might have a "chance" in 2010. Now I'm thinking landslide?

---

The Patriot's Flag - Democrats Exposed

[Myrddin]

The bastards got their 60 vote party line vote. Now, Reid will strip the original contents and insert the "health care" bill contents in place of the original bill. It will only need 51 votes to pass. A few of the Dems who voted yes for the 60 vote cloture can now hide with a "no" vote on the "real" bill so their re-election hopes aren't compromised.

[paul51]

If you are betting against passage, I'll take that bet. There has been so much discussion about having something like Canadian health care passed. By the time these clowns get done and every special interest group has purchased the portion important to them, we will end up with a pile of crap that will make the Canadian system look good.

[Bronzy]

“Stop the Hysteria”

I’ve been hysterical ever since this government controlled health care was introduced. It is a hallmark of the left. It has to be battled at every turn.

[Secret Agent Man]

The “Recall Landrieu” option seems to be a good one to begin with. Apparently Louisiana is one of 18 states that you can recall a senator in. I would immediately start organizing one if I lived in LA, and for those not in LA, start emailing that you will be sending funds to those in LA to begin the recall effort as well as for a conservative replacement for her seat.

[freekitty]

I won’t put anything past Republican or Democrat.

[ncalburt]

The fact that old George Voinvich from Ohio was allowed to go to Cleveland for a reunion party tells me the final vote was common knowledge for weeks.

This procedural vote has been hyped by the Obama state media and Reid as historic blah blah blah....
Lincoln and Landrieu were told to play along and play coy so Reid could keep the media attention on this common procedure.
This entire thing was a PR stunt for their left wing base and to help promote this phony Big Momentum PR story !

[sickoflibs]

Thank you! These mice have been claiming dems will win any day now since June.

[Stentor]

Wanna buy a bridge?

[Varsity Flight]

A final bill of this nature, minus the so called “public option”, is STILL A “PUBLIC” Federal “beltway/entrenched interests control bill.” One other note: "insurance" is not an industry. It's a tool, and has it's place and value. But it's not an industry (and neither is "banking").

[kabar]

Most probably they are going to be able to pass a healthcare bill that contains a trigger public option or a trigger co-op which in all practical form is a meaningless gesture because it is not going to be triggered at all in the future.

The public option has become too much of the focus of the opponents of Obamacare. We are missing the forest for the trees. If the Dems pass mandatory health insurance and enable government to set the standards as to what is acceptable health insurance, including compulsory insurance for pre-existing conditions, then they will have won. Private insurance premiums will continue to increase, which will result in a public demand for a government option.

[Sun]

From my email

“National Right to Life to Obama and Reid:
You wanted debate? Now you’ll get debate –
on government-funded abortion.

WASHINGTON (November 21, 2009) — The U.S. Senate tonight barely cleared an initial 60-vote procedural hurdle, setting the stage for a 2,074-page health care bill, crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.), to move forward to debate before the full Senate. The following statement was issued by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, and may be attributed to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.

As National Right to Life has previously noted, Senator Reid’s bill [on page 118] would authorize the federal government to pay for any and all abortions through a huge new federal health insurance program, the “public option,” and also to subsidize purchase of private plans that cover abortion on demand. President Obama and Reid know that the substance of these abortion-promoting policies is deeply unpopular, so they seek to conceal the reality with layers of contorted definitions and money-laundering schemes.

Obama and Reid wanted debate – so now they’ll get debate, on their cloaked provisions that would cover abortion on demand in proposed new government-run and government-subsidized insurance plans.

Obama and Reid are seeking to block enactment of the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts compromise, adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives on November 7 by a vote of 240-194. This amendment would prevent government funding of elective abortion through the proposed “public option,” and would also prevent federal subsidies from paying for private insurance plans that cover elective abortion.

During the weeks ahead, National Right to Life will continue to fight the efforts of President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders to cover abortion on demand in two huge new federal health programs. The Senate bill faces additional 60-vote hurdles in the future. Moreover, a courageous group of pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives will oppose final approval of health care legislation if the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is gutted or removed.”

[dpwiener]

I concur with your analysis. The Democrats are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they are under tremendous pressure from their far-left base, which sees this as the best and perhaps only chance (for years to come) to introduce socialized medicine. After all, if they can't do now with a leftist President, a huge majority in the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, when can they? So anything less than a full “public option”, or anything which looks like a compromised (e.g., anti-abortion or anti-immigrant language) or watered-down (e.g., trigger) health bill, will provoke full-scale civil war within the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, all the polls show massive and still-growing opposition to government-controlled health care and the enormous costs and deficits and rationing it will entail. Obama’s popularity is tanking, and his coat tails have turned into millstones. Opponents of the health bill are energized and angry and active. Two states just elected Republican governors, independents are massively shifting away from Democrats, and Republicans are leading on generic ballots. The 2010 midterms may well cost the Dems the House and most of their majority in the Senate.

Every Congressman and especially every Senator is a survivor of years of political struggle to reach his or her exalted position. Staying in office, with all its power and perks (and, for many of them, opportunities for corruption) is their overwhelming imperative. Yeah, there may be a few who are so ideologically motivated that they'd sacrifice their political futures for the sake of achieving government control of medicine, but not many. A somewhat larger group may realize that they'll lose the next election no matter which way they vote (either pissing off their base or pissing off the majority of the constituents), so they might as well go down voting for socialized medicine. But that's still not a big number, especially since they tend to have large egos and a capacity for self-deception.

So with that background, let's look at the political equation which Pelosi and Reid and Obama are trying to solve. Time is against them: the longer this drags out, the more public opinion moves against them, and the closer the 2010 midterm disaster looms. Pelosi had very little margin of error: The House vote was extremely close (although she undoubtedly had a few emergency votes in her pocket had more been necessary) and she had to compromise on the Stupak anti-abortion amendment. Reid has zero margin of error, since even a single defection can prevent cloture.

There are at least half a dozen Senate Democrats who are far more worried about their re-election prospects than they are about passing a health bill. I predict that the Landrieu $300 million “Louisiana Purchase” is going to backfire horribly. Voters may like a little pork and wink at a little log-rolling, but they become indignant when the bribery is too blatant, and I expect polls to show that in the next few days. Landrieu will be backpedaling furiously to try to prove that she wasn't bought off.

Similarly, each of those other Senators will be trying to demonstrate his or her independence from Reid by making a variety of demands, starting with the elimination of the public option. These demands will be incompatible with the demands of other Senators, and trying to craft amendments which will satisfy all 60 Democrats is iffy at best. Desperate appeals will be made to somehow unify because a loss would be even worse politically. But if it looks like even one Democrat might defect and block cloture, half a dozen others will be unwilling to walk the plank in a losing cause.

Even if the Senate finally passes some heavily-compromised and amended measure, melding it with the House bill in Conference will be even more difficult. Almost anything which is left in or taken out, be it the public option or anti-abortion language or immigrant restrictions or taxes or Medicare reimbursement rates, is likely to lose enough votes in either the House or Senate to prevent final passage. Competing blocks of Congressmen will sign letters pledging to vote against the final measure if their hot button item is either left in or taken out. Ditto for individual Senators. Doing so gives them cover with their constituents and an ironclad excuse for killing it.

As Pelosi and Reid search futilely for a formula which can pass both houses, the measure will continue to languish in the Conference Committee, and the election will get closer and closer. Eventually, in desperation, they'll report out a highly stripped-down bill just so they can get something passed and declare victory. But even that may not work, given the subsequent fury of the most liberal Congressmen and Senators and leftist groups like Moveon.org.

It's going to be scary for the next few months, no doubt about it, but there are still good reasons for optimism. And if the above projections are correct, in the end it will be popcorn time.

[Mad Dawgg]

"The vote today was only to start the debate and it is absolutely does not guarantee at all that the current bill in the Senate with it current version of public option aka socialized medicine is going to pass."

Ahhh I don't think you understand.

ANY bill is going to be costly and we can't afford it and it will NEVER GO AWAY.

Its like having a large weight dropped on your head...

Its no consolation whatsoever if they decide to use a two ton weight instead of a three ton weight. We are still going to get the same result.