The Health Care Sortie
Despite their numbers and Reid’s timing and bribes, not all circumstances are under their control. The Democrat health care takeover is being attacked from numerous directions. Some of these assaults may fail, but the battle continues.
First, as I posted yesterday Senator Jim DeMint and Senator John Ensign will force a vote today on the constitutionality of the health care bill. Even if they lose, at the AmSpecBlog Quin Hillyer wrote, “This is important symbolically, substantively, and perhaps legally.” Senator DeMint has another vote he’s going after that Justrand mentioned in today’s Nelson post:
It is similar to an amendment both Senators DeMint and Dick Durbin (D-IL) offered up to S.1, the ethics reform package that Congress considered in 2007. That amendment passed the Senate 98 to 0, but was then stripped out in closed-door negotiations before S.1 was passed by the Congress.
The amendment would not apply to the health care bill, but would apply to all future legislation and would prohibit bribing Senators with earmarks in exchange for votes.
Second, Senator Jeff Sessions has nailed down one of the Democrats’ accounting tricks–double counting the use of Medicare cuts, and held a news conference with Senator Judd Gregg to expose the reality of an increased deficit.
Savings from Medicare touted by Democrats as a means to pay for the Senate health care bill was double-counted and the legislation will increase the deficit, not decrease it, a senior Republican senator said Wednesday, citing a new letter from the Congressional Budget Office….
…Sen. Jeff Sesssions, R-Ala, said the nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare actually will add $300 billion to the deficit.
“The real score on this legislation is that it would cause the deficit to increase, and not be a surplus as the president has promised,” Sessions told Fox News. “And a lot members of our Congress have said I won’t vote for this bill unless it’s deficit neutral. It’s not deficit neutral. It will add to the debt. That’s clear today.”
Sessions reached his calculations after speaking to CBO Director Doug Elmendorf….
“To describe the full amount of HI [Hospital Insurance] trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position,” he wrote.
The Democrats may ignore this, but the voters will not. With the DeMint-Ensign vote on the bill’s constitutionality and this exposure of the bill’s increase in the deficit, the power grab and lies of the Democrats are being pinned down and exposed. Ed Morrissey has video of the joint press conference that Senator Sessions held with Senator Judd Gregg. Ed comments:
This punches a huge hole in two arguments from Democrats. First, they have assured people that cutting $500 billion from Medicare will only cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” which certainly could have been addressed without overhauling the nation’s health-care market. They insist that people will not see a reduction in benefits in the future in Medicare, and that these cuts strengthen the system for the future. The CBO’s letter shows that cuts to the budget will have to result in cuts to the system and benefits if Congress intends on using the money to pay for other efforts.
The second argument to die on this report is the supposed deficit neutrality of ObamaCare….
The Hill is reporting that Blue Dogs are saying they may flip to vote for the Senate version; however, they’re citing better cost containment in the Senate as they’re rationale and Senator Sessions has deflated that argument.
Third, RedState reports:
It is looking like Mitch McConnell will object to the appointment of conferees to create a formal conference that would attempt to reconcile the House and Senate versions of Obamacare.
Yesterday, Dan Perrin outlined how he thinks this would work:
This forces two votes in the U.S. House, one vote to amend the Senate bill on the House floor, since the Senate bill likely cannot pass the House unamended, and will force another vote on final passage of the amended House bill.
Fourth, Stupak is still being a problem about abortion spending. After Nelson’s betrayal,we will see if there really are any pro-life Democrats in the House.
It is evident the White House is going to pressure the Stupak coalition to compromise their principles. However, the Stupak coalition is already seeing what is happening to Judas Ben Nelson. This likely will harden their position on holding to their pro-life principles because they don’t want to reap the whirlwind that Nelson is.
Fifth, in a contradiction of The Hill, Politico writes:
House Democrats insisted Tuesday they have no plans to roll over for the Senate in upcoming negotiations on a health reform bill, even as they acknowledged it would be all but impossible to reinsert a public insurance option or force the so-called millionaire’s tax on the Senate….
Other differences the speaker mentioned Tuesday include: replacing the Senate’s state-run exchanges with a national exchange established under the House bill, adding tougher mandates to make sure everyone secures health coverage and closing a gap in prescription-drug coverage next year. Senate negotiators have agreed to close the so-called doughnut hole, but they haven’t agreed on a time to implement those changes.
The column closes by saying that the House hopes to have the bill done by the State of the Union. This contradicts the last item on my list.
Sixth, egos, issues and timing are going to be increasingly difficult to manage:
Politico is reporting:
The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.
Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.
Internally, White House aides are plunging into a 2010 plan calling for an early focus on creating jobs, especially in the energy sector, along with starting a conversation about deficit reduction measures, the administration officials said.
Both will be major themes for his first State of the Union speech, which will most likely take place on Jan. 26 or Feb. 2. White House aides are in the early stages of planning for the national address, but Obama will not only trumpet what he has described as his “B-plus” performance in 2009 but also set the stage for the 2010 congressional campaigns…
Logistically, it’s hard to see how this [health care] gets done before early to mid-February. The House comes back into session on Jan. 12 and then goes on a Democratic retreat. The Senate doesn’t come back until Jan. 18. And once a final health deal is worked out, it could take seven to 10 days for the Congressional Budget Office to deliver a final report on cost.
As he considered the two Politico reports, Ed Morrissey wrote on the issues in the House and on Obama’s delay:
…These issues will be too tough to overcome without the House reworking the bill. That will either require a conference committee to resolve the two bills or an attempt by Harry Reid to get the Senate to buy a House version (the “ping-pong” strategy), either of which would be subject to cloture votes and unlikely to succeed to a floor vote.
The longer that debate drags, the further Obama drops in the polls, which is why this move only makes sense if the White House sees weeks more futility in the health-care overhaul debate. Even liberal commentators like the Seattle Times editorial board want Democrats to shelve ObamaCare and start paying attention to the fact that unemployment has spun out of control on their watch. Deficits are even more wild, as Obama’s OMB Director Peter Orszag was forced to acknowledge when he admitted that he had underestimated deficits over the next ten years by 22%, or $2,200,000,000,000.
All of this may be further compounded if a deal McConnell struck with Reid holds. From Byron York at the Washington Examiner:
…Reid wanted to leave town earlier than 7 p.m. So McConnell offered him a deal. The Senate comes back into session on January 20, just a few days before the State of the Union address. McConnell offered to hold the health care vote a few hours earlier on Christmas Eve if Reid would agree to take up the debt limit issue on January 20, and would further agree to hold a specific roll-call vote that day on raising the debt ceiling, and would further agree to consider, and vote on, five Republican amendments related to out-of-control federal spending.
In the debt debate — the one Democrats didn’t want to have — GOP senators are expected to offer amendments to end the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, as well as amendments on a budget-cutting package, on a deficit-control commission and other spending-related items.
“So days before the president’s State of the Union, where he has said he is going to talk about getting the deficit under control, we are going to force a vote on raising the government’s credit card limit because we are maxed out,” says the Senate aide. “We’re going to force them to vote on ending TARP, deficit control — things they don’t want to do. And it’ll be on the first day back, when everybody’s paying attention.”
“They want to get the hell out of here,” the aide says of Democrats. “They traded away a vote on the debt limit to get out of town a few hours earlier. It’s a bad deal for them.”
Obama is between Scylla and Charybdis. After almost a year of lying and breaking promises his credibility is shattered across the political spectrum. Scylla was the monster that ate sailors and Charybdis was the monster that created whirlpools. Obama and the Democrats, like Odysseus, have chosen to sail close to Scylla and hope to lose only a few Democrats in 2010 in order to try to avoid having their agenda swallowed up by Charybdis.
Voters are awake. Every day into January, I expect the anger and backlash to continue to build. We must continue to work, to inform and to pray that our fellow Americans become a raging whirlpool that destroys the Democrats’ extension of power.
__________
H/T: AmSpecBlog, Justrand, RedState, FOX News, Hot Air, The Hill (via Hot Air), Politico (via Hot Air), Washington Examiner.
[1]
Inc,
In the end, they will just change the rules and bypass any necessary votes after conference.
See: Sanders, Colonel, Amendment Reading
[2]
Outlaw the Democratic Party.
[3]
On the question some pose about why arent insurance companies resisting this scheme as it will result in their eventual bankruptcy.
While I think it is are correct to say that the current thugs/socialists in charge give them essentally no choices in the matter – take this de facto nationalization (ie we the government will run you thru regulation) or get worse (ie government option or single payer).
And I also agree that the Individual Mandate will result in an initial spike in high-paying young and healthy customers that will fatten the bottomline for about the first five years or so. But the end result will be eventual bankruptcy ie transition to single payer!
As has been pointed out, people will learn how to “game the system” and use the pre-exsisting condition rules to only buy insurance when needed as it will be cheaper to pay the fine. And of course, the youngest/healthiest customers will be the ones opting out as they are being overcharged for insurance they dont need due to excessive treatment mandates and the community rating price control scheme. The Insurance companies will then be left with only the aged and chronically sick on their books (the high cost customers) as insurance would make sense for them as they routinely access it and the government price controls/subsidies make it the rational economic choice.
Its called the “insurance death sprial” and its a very real phenomeon. In ME when they adopted essentially this same ObamaCare scheme, they went from 21 to 2 insurance firms in the market in a few years and premiums soared at more then twice the national average!
No, the left knows exactly what they are doing and what the results will be!
Thats why they are on the TV, Radio, etc essentially selling the public on how this is “watered down” and “a compromise – no big deal” to lessen resistance now.
Its also why Howard Dean et al are playing up the “insurance giveaway” angle too. This way when the scheme impoldes, the left will be poised to blame the free market when nothing of the sort was allowed to exsist!
Conservatives had better counter this disinformation and fast!
http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2009/12/23/the_three-step_plan_to_stop_nationalized_health_care
[4]
MDefl, I understand the frustration.
I think the thing that encouraged me the most this morning was to hear that Sessions had tracked down the double-dealing in the numbers. He, DeMint and others are scouring this monstrosity to find any weakness and exploit it.
Every delay and every day is important. Each one, in and of itself, might not matter. But anything done, however small, that highlights lies or creates a stumble is important. I think we’re going for the death of a thousand cuts.
We don’t know future circumstances or turns of events or how things may yet backfire. We have to realistically assess what can be done, but we have to remember that momentum and morale count–and they are significant.
[5]
INC, very informative and complete. Thank you.
Do you think Reid will honor his deal with McConnell?
[6]
Hmmm. Thoughtful worries.
[7]
Bruce
No.
[8]
Per redstate:
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/12/23/the-greatest-scam-on-earth/
“Today the Senate of the United States voted on a constitutional point of order raised by Senators Jim DeMint and John Ensign.
The Senators challenged the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the Democrats’ health care legislation. The individual mandate is a federally imposed requirement that every man, woman, and child in the United States obtain health insurance on pain of financial penalty or, in the Democrats’ proposal, jail.
Put more plainly, if you chose not to have health insurance, the Congress of the United States intends to punish you by taking away your property or your life via incarceration.
All 39 of the Republican Senators still present in Washington today voted that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.
Let me repeat that — every Republican Senator still in Washington, D.C. today voted that it is unconstitutional to impose an individual mandate on the citizens of the United States.”
[9]
All 39 of the Republican Senators still present in Washington today voted that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. — WEC
Even more important — who is the scoundrel that is not present??
[10]
Bruce, Reid will try to weasel out of anything he can; however, the Senate doesn’t get back until January 20th. If there’s not vote on the debt limit, then it can’t happen until January.
Hillyer at AmSpecBlog doesn’t like the deal–I understand his points and I’m all for all of the drama you can get. It’s a toss-up over when to have the drama and trying to guess how many will be glued to the TV on Christmas Eve for a political vote. Hillyer thinks January is too late and the voters will forget about the debt vote as they have in the past. I don’t think voters will lose interest in this.
[11]
#9 I dunno – kind of curious also to see if all 60 D voted against the Consitution and freedom….
And in favor of their new “partners” in the insurance lobby for their phase I (I like to call is “Facisim First”) of the transition to single payer/socialist medicine!
[12]
great question, drdog…I wondered that same thing myself.
Sadly the Repubs cannot afford to miss a single trick any more. Every time a Repub is missing from a vote qhich requires Cloture the Dems will grant “amnesty” to a vulnerbable Dem to let them pretend to be “Of the People!”.
If the Repubs can keep the 40 Senators in line, then they can force the Dems to own EVERYTHING! Had Obama and the Dems actually worked with the Dems we would have actually been worse off…since they still would have gotten all they wanted, but they could have PRETENDED that an attempt at “Bi-Partisanship” was made.
[13]
Moe Lane has an interesting take on the Politico article about the WH letting the health care talks slip into February.
This may yet come down to whether Obama has any leadership capacity at all. If it comes to that things will look up. I think he has little real leadership ability. He’s too narcissistic and he’s had zilch practice bringing legislation to completion, let alone standing firm in the face of volley fire.
Rahm’s Chicago style knee-capping isn’t leadership. We have to hope enough egos blow up that this blows the Democrats apart.
[14]
#9. I think it’s Inhofe. I don’t know what’s up with him, but he hasn’t been around for any of the votes this week.
[15]
the idiots say that the stock market is back up over 10,000 points.
Except…….the dollar on which that number is based has devalued by as much as 26% since last March.
Therefore the true value of the stock market is 10,000 X .74 or 7400 points, a 26% loss.
But…….here is another problem. You can quote those numbers all day to a confirmed Demo. They simply do not understand it, therefore deny its existen ce or they attack the messenger.. To them a dollar is a dollar. They are not well enough educated and/or lack the neural connections to do the calculation and understand its significance.
[16]
Inhofe’s no scoundrel. He was in Copenhagen. Maybe they’re giving him a break. If he were needed, then he would be there.
The Dems have to hold 60. 39 or 40 votes for the Rs don’t change that.
[17]
Brandon,
As much as I love Inhofe, if it be he who is MIA then he is a Sunshine Patriot.
[18]
INC,
True. But these are the times that ‘volleys’ count. That requires boots on the ground.
[19]
Why you can’t trust a Blue Dog –
”
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), a Blue Dog who voted against the House’s healthcare bill in November, said that he and many other centrist Democrats would flip their votes to support the Senate bill if it came up for a vote in the House.
“I think the Senate bill is stronger and I think there’s a chance that when the Senate bill comes over to the House, if we can keep some of those provisions for cost containment in the bill, bringing down the deficit, and bringing down healthcare costs, there’s a good chance a lot of conservative Democrats who voted against it in the House will support the Senate bill as it comes out of conference,” Altmire said during an appearance Tuesday evening on the Fox Business Network.”
Source: The Hill
Send’em to Hell.
[20]
The Republicans really need to use this in the 2010 campaign. It’s essential that every Republican not only be veiwed as running against his/her opponent but also against Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
I blame the Republicans for a lot 2001 – 2006, but they never pulled stunts like this.
[21]
Looks like WEC was right! The whole ‘wait till February’ is a farce. Obama may delay his Hawaii vacation pending a vote on HC. The ink won’t even dry before he boards the plane to get there…..
[22]
#21 I think thats just the Senate vote tommorrow….I am trying to counter the DNC new “well there wont be a vote till FEB” disinformation campaign….
Again, I think the whole tactic is always to get people to think “its over” or “its no big deal now”….
Just so you “pesky” citzens and “teabaggers” will quiet down, watch tiger or something, while the “professional” politicans finish this behind closed doors….
We b getting rolled again lol
[23]
I think that’s only for the Senate vote.
The Feb wait is over the Conference/no Conference/whatever final passage. It remains to be seen if that’s disinformation or for real.
[24]
No one is going to quiet down. If they think that, then they don’t know America. And they don’t!
[25]
#19 Of course and all they said they opposed too was the “government option”…..now that its gone…..cool lets force people to participate in the de facto National Health Insurance scam!
[26]
More perfidy from Ben Nelson:
We Have The Actual Roll Call Sheet. Nelson Was For It Before Being Against It
Go look at it!
[27]
Ha! That only makes him look worse. I guess he was trying to look ethical or something!
[28]
#24 I hope not…..but that the DNC messaging – downplay the takeover to lull people, change the subject, finsh it quickly behind the scenes…..
Its out everywhere today – TV, Talking Radio, internet….
Watch what the stooges be saying “its watered down” and “its a good framework for future reform”….
[29]
Wylie, are you going back to sleep?
Didn’t think so.
Even those not as vigorous in their attack as you are not going back to sleep.
This has been the year of the Tea Party.
[30]
Ok gang, then explain why this comment is made at WSJ –
“Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled. If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.”
Source: WSJ, “For Their Next Trick . . . ”
Say the Senate passes today. Those two yahoos (sorry RWY) could meet together in a cloak room and nod ‘Yes’ and that is the end of everything but respective floor votes.
[31]
I like Inhofe, but members of Congress have plenty of time to be with their families. Congress doesn’t resume until mid-January.
Source: ABC News
[32]
(a) Federal Government Regulatory power over all Health Insurance companies/Comparative Effectiveness Boards aka HEALTH EXCHANGE CZAR/DEATH PANELS
(b) Employer/Individual Mandates to force everyone to buy a government specified Health Insurance plan AKA UNIVERSAL COVERAGE
(c) Massive Government Subsidies to middle class citizens to purchase the mandates insurance AKA MEDICAL WELFARE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS
With the Federal Government setting the rules, forcing everyone to participate, and is paying the bills for most of the middle class through subsidies how is this anything other than Nationalization?
Basically, the Federal government will be controlling the Health Insurance industry just like it controls the Banks and Auto Companies who received bailout money. While it will still technically be true that health insurance companies are “private” companies, they will be only in the same sense that GM, CITIGROUP, etc are still “private” companies. Since the Federal government has provided most of the funding and dictated all the terms of business, politicians and technocrats will really be calling the shots. Essentially, all health insurance companies in the country will be quasi-governmental agencies that simply get to stay in business to administer the National Health insurance program on a small for-profit basis.
So please don’t be confused into thinking that much in the way of any meaningful substance has changed once the “public” option as been dropped.
[33]
Dr. D., I have to run–it’s in one of my links above about what that means by way of votes still to come.
[34]
Benedict Nelson is giving unprincipled back-stabbing sleezebags a bad name.
He had damn well BETTER be toast in Nebraska after all this crap!
[35]
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said the White House and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives have been pressuring him not to speak out on the “compromise” abortion language in the Senate version of the health care bill.
“They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language,” Stupak told CNSNews.com in an interview on Tuesday. “Well, I don’t need anyone to sell me the language. I can read it. I’ve seen it. I’ve worked with it. I know what it says. I don’t need to have a conference with the White House. I have the legislation in front of me here.”
I wonder if Bart is for real or holding out for goodies.
[36]
Unconstitutional Obamacare? [Robert Costa]
Is Obamacare unconstitutional? “We don’t ask that question enough up here,” says Sen. John Ensign (R., Nev.) in a conversation with NRO.
“Whether it is or not, we have to remember that state governments have the power to do a lot of things that the federal government cannot. The enumerated powers in the Constitution do not give carte blanche to the federal government to force people to do this or do that,” says Ensign. “When you look at this bill, and you see the federal government forcing folks to buy health insurance through an individual mandate, you see it’s clearly beyond the scope of its power. I’m not a lawyer, and that’s just a plain reading, but to anyone, that looks like a clear overreach.”
Ensign raised this issue through a point of order on Tuesday. Today, the Senate will vote on his motion.
Why did it take Republicans so long to raise this argument? Ensign reminds us that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) has been arguing along this line for months. “We were going to make this motion a few weeks ago, but we were in a parliamentary situation where you couldn’t offer this as long as a motion to recommit was pending business. We had to wait for those kind of things to clear.”
“We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” says Ensign. “I at least want the Democrats to think about the oath that they took. I want them and their staffs to have to defend why they think this is constitutional. We should be asking this question on every single bill, especially on something that’s changing our entire economy.”
Will Ensign’s motion pass? Probably not. Democrats are committed to seeing their bill win final passage by tomorrow.
“They probably have the votes in the Senate to finish this bill, but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal,” says Ensign. “They still have difficulties in the House and in the Senate on abortion. Even on this individual mandate, the Left and Right are united against it. Even Keith Olbermann is against this thing.”
[37]
WTF does this mean?
“Why did it take Republicans so long to raise this argument? Ensign reminds us that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) has been arguing along this line for months. “We were going to make this motion a few weeks ago, but we were in a parliamentary situation where you couldn’t offer this as long as a motion to recommit was pending business. We had to wait for those kind of things to clear.”
Anyone?
Translation to english?
Sounds like an excuse to me….
[38]
Good point.
But keep her away from sarkozy.