Michelle Malkin » Sunday showdown: The Senate’s Demcare treachery

Sunday showdown: The Senate’s Demcare treachery

By Michelle Malkin • December 20, 2009 10:03 AM

Sellout Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got his Cash-for-Cloture Christmas present early: Special Medicaid expansion subsidies for his state ($45 million for starters over the next decade). The budget-strapped governors of every other state in the union ought to be crying foul.

*Update: CBO now says Nelson’s Cornhusker Kickback will cost $100 million for Nebraska. Vermont and Massachusetts will also benefit from similar deals. Combined, the three-state kickback will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over 10 years.*

Despite his protestations and rationalizations, government abortion funding remains in the bill.

As the Small Business Against Big Government blog quipped: The secret to the Art of the Sellout is to pretend you tried.

FYI: The Senate plan also still allows for government coverage of illegal aliens.

We are all Joe Wilsons now.

President Obama, September 9, 2009:

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions…

THEY LIE.

Time is of the essence. Here’s the rundown of the next 24 hours:

“Following the remarks of Senator Coburn, the Senate will adjourn until 1:00pm Sunday, December 20. Following the prayer and pledge, the time until 1:30pm will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees. Beginning at 1:30pm and until 11:30pm, there will be alternating blocks of time, with the Republicans controlling the first hour and the Majority controlling the next hour.

At 11:30pm (Sunday), the Senate will recess until 12:01am Monday, December 21. Following the prayer and pledge, the time until 1:00am will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Majority Leader controlling the final 10 minutes and the Republican Leader controlling the 10 minutes immediately prior.

At 1:00AM Monday, December 21, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the Reid-Baucus-Dodd-Harkin amendment #2376.”

Did Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy (or lack thereof) fail? RedState thinks so.

But it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

Nebraskans are rebelling.

The rest of us must continue to raise our voices, too, and fight to the end.

Melt those phones.

***

The corruption of the deliberative process over Demcare gives complete lie to the pretense that government can run health care in a non-corruptible way. Must-read big picture essay from Doctor Zero: “The illusion of design.” An excerpt:

Liberals insist it is simply unthinkable to allow financial considerations to impact the distribution of this essential human right. As Kirsten Powers put it recently, “Americans will die if we don’t provide universal health insurance.” Because money is the instrument through which free people express their will and make choices, the argument for socialized medicine boils down to the superiority of design and control over competition and choice.

So, in summary, the case for nationalizing health insurance is that health care cannot be entrusted to the unpredictability and greed of the free market. The individual purchasing decisions of free men and women are too chaotic. The only way to ensure access to health care for everyone is for the State to install a massive, strictly enforced system, complete with huge fines and jail time for those who fail to comply. This system would be superior to the free market, because it would be carefully designed by brilliant minds… engineered to deliver an incredibly complex, ever-changing service to hundreds of millions of Americans.

Is anyone stupid enough to think a “carefully designed system” is what the Democrats are about to drop on us?

Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) held up the Senate reform bill over his heartfelt concerns over abortion funding… until he was bought off with hundreds of millions of dollars in enhanced funding for Medicaid in his state. In a similar vein, language worth over $100 million was added to the bill, targeting the state of Louisiana, to purchase the vote of “moderate” Democrat Mary Landrieu. In other words, this “carefully designed” health care bill has different rules for people who happen to live in Nebraska or Louisiana, because this was necessary to buy the votes of their senators.

The Congressional Budget Office scoring for the health care reform bill is based on tricks and gimmicks, including Medicare reductions and cuts of over 20% in physician payments, that no one seriously believes will actually happen. A great deal of this health care reform package is a delusional fantasy, if not an outright fraud.

Socialist senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont jammed a 767-page amendment into the bill, then violated Senate procedures to suddenly withdraw it when Republicans forced the entire amendment to be read on the Senate floor.

Far from being a brilliant plan constructed by top doctors and financial experts in a government brain trust, this health-care bill is a twisted, deformed political document, seen in its entirety by only a few high-ranking politicians belonging to a single political party. Its components have not been precisely crafted as part of a fantastic system calibrated to ensure the maximum access to quality health care for all Americans.

The bill is not being examined with transparency and careful deliberation by representatives who behave as humble servants of the people and their Constitution. Instead, it’s being hastily rammed through in the dead of night, over the objection of powerful majorities of the American people, with desperate last-minute deals cut to acquire the necessary votes, financed by vast sums of taxpayer money. The primary consideration is not crafting the most sophisticated and intelligent health care reform… it’s getting a bill pushed through before angry voters have a chance to blast the Democrats out of Congress.

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#101

On December 21st, 2009 at 1:26 am, tbear44 said:

The bill is not being examined with transparency and careful deliberation by representatives who behave as humble servants of the people and their Constitution. Instead, it’s being hastily rammed through in the dead of night, over the objection of powerful majorities of the American people, with desperate last-minute deals cut to acquire the necessary votes, financed by vast sums of taxpayer money. The primary consideration is not crafting the most sophisticated and intelligent health care reform… it’s getting a bill pushed through before angry voters have a chance to blast the Democrats out of Congress.

And that’s it, in a nutshell.
#102

On December 21st, 2009 at 11:43 am, Dexter Alarius said:

The primary consideration is not crafting the most sophisticated and intelligent health care reform… it’s getting a bill pushed through before angry voters have a chance to blast the Democrats out of Congress.

The worst part about it is that it will be nearly impossible to fix it. We would need veto- and filibuster-proof majorities in both houses to dismantle this monstrosity.
#103

On December 21st, 2009 at 12:06 pm, Roland said:

The worst part about it is that it will be nearly impossible to fix it.

We are unlikely to take the Senate at all, since there will only be 18 Democrat seats up for election in 2010. The Democrats will win most of those even if there is a Republican landslide that takes back the House with a substantial majority. Even if we take the Senate, there is the filibuster. And even if a filibuster can be beaten, there is Obama’s veto.

However, there is one thing a conservative House of Representatives could do: Cut off funding. Shut down the federal government.

Since that is what they should do anyway, there really isn’t any problem.

Oh, it’ll create chaos, and the dinosaur media will be blaming conservatives for the chaos every step of the way with an unprecedented bombardment of propaganda, painting Obama as an heroic figure standing against “barbarians” who want to “roll back civilization” and all of that kind of garbage, but it can be done with ‘only’ a landslide in the House.
#104

On December 21st, 2009 at 6:42 pm, happyscrapper said:

On December 20th, 2009 at 2:31 pm, Pasadena Phil said:

Don’t you know that “perfection is the enemy of the good”? See the problem? Conservatives are throwing their votes away voting for those Republicans. That is why the GOP is now the defacto 3rd party. Don’t throw your vote away voting automatically for a Republican.

On December 20th, 2009 at 4:18 pm, Ignatius Reilly said:
Phil, you are a simple-minde, G.D. bore.

On December 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm, Ignatius Reilly said:
…the belief that the point can be won by relentless repetition to the same audience is extremely grating. As is the opinion that persons not drinking third-party Kool-Aid must necessarily be libs.

On December 20th, 2009 at 6:14 pm, Pasadena Phil said:
Jangar and the rest of you “Republican Uber Alles” zombies. The Republican IS the 3rd party. Conservatives outnumber what is left of your doomed tribe of losers by more than 2 to 1. Do the math. Tea Party is now the biggest party. How dense are you people anyway?

On December 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm, sbw999 said:
On December 20th, 2009 at 8:43 pm, chapoutier said:

Not that I would ever discourage you all from splitting the vote (by all means!),
There ya go Pasadena and Flyover man…The Socialist Party awaits your willing assistance!!!

O.K. Where to start!! I am sorry I have been away this afternoon because I would have definitely chimed in here. First, Pasadena…Many of your posts are very astute and right-on. But you seem to have a real hang-up against any Republican, no matter who it is. And you are determined that the GOP should go down in flames. Every Conservative voice out there says just the opposite. Rush, Beck, Hannity, Ingraham, and, I believe, Malkin, are all for reforming the GOP, not tossing the baby out with the bathwater. But yet, you have decided you are the authority on the subject and any of us who disagree are morons and, of course, liberal trolls. Your insults are very annoying and unseemly. Why alienate many of the conservatives on this blog by calling them liberals when they don’t march lock-step with your agenda? You are the one sounding like a liberal when you act that way. I haven’t forgotten your insults to me a long time ago when I asked a simple question…”what do you find so wrong with Michael Steele?” It was when he was newly selected as head of the GOP and I thought he was pretty conservative. Of course, I have since found a number of things I don’t like about him, but at the time, I just asked an innocent question. You tore into me like I was crazy. You insulted me, called me a liberal troll. I was really hurt by that. When I asked you to apologize, you said even worse things. Then later, you were all reasonable again, like it had never happened. In my opinion, you have a bit of schizophrenia going on there. Sorry, but I call it as I see it.

Ignatius is right…your constant harping on the subject of third party is getting very tiresome. I would have mentioned that long ago, but Ignatius said it so much better…”Phil, you are a simple-minded, G.D. bore”.
#105

On December 21st, 2009 at 6:54 pm, happyscrapper said:

On December 20th, 2009 at 6:14 pm, Pasadena Phil said:
Tea Party is now the biggest party. How dense are you people anyway?

One more thing…I think Pasadena is confusing the Tea Party with an actual political party. It is not. It takes a lot more than calling something a “Party” to make it one. The reason for the name is historical, not political. I assume he knows that, but I’m just not sure.