This morning at around 8 AM, the Senate passed, again on a straight party-line vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) manager’s amendment to the Senate’s version of Obamacare. This keeps the Senate on pace to pass the bill at 9 PM on Christmas Eve despite the fact that Americans overwhelmingly opposed the legislation. But even after the Senate gives President Barack Obama his $2.5 trillion Christmas present, the bill, assuming it is to be considered in regular order, still must go through a House and Senate conference.

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President Barack Obama attempted to downplay differences between the House and Senate bills telling American Urban Radio Networks yesterday: “The Senate and the House bills are 95 percent identical. There’s five percent differences, and one of those differences is the public option. This is an area that has just become symbolic of a lot of ideological fights. As a practical matter, this is not the most important aspect to this bill.” We’ll let President Obama fight with his base abut how important a strong public option is to health reform, but a government run plan is just one of six key differences between the House and Senate bills:

Soak the Rich or Tax Everybody: The Senate bill relies heavily on a new excise tax on high cost health plans: a 40 percent tax on plan exceeding $8,500 for an individual and $23,000 for a family. The AFL-CIO and SEIU both call this a tax on working families. The Senate bill also includes a new premium tax on all insurers and the CBO confirms that the cost of this tax will be passed on to all Americans with private insurance. The House bill depends on a heavy new income tax targeted at top-earning taxpayers and small businesses. The 5.4 percent tax on individuals with incomes above $500,000, and on families with incomes above $1 million, is structured in a way that over time more and more Americans will be hit by this tax and small business owners would be particularly affected.

Employer Mandate Penalties: The Senate bill imposes a $750 penalty per worker on employers of 50 or more who are not covered by the federally approved package of health benefits. The Senate mandate has other strange consequences. If an employer offers coverage, but an employee is eligible by virtue of income to qualify for taxpayer subsidies and entry into the state-based health insurance exchange, the employer is also penalized. In other words, employers are penalized for hiring people at the poverty level, even if they offer health insurance. The House bill imposes a direct requirement on employers to offer federally-qualified health care coverage to their employees or pay a payroll tax on a sliding scale up to 8 percent. Both the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses have come out against the bills.

Individual Mandate Penalties: The Senate bill requires individuals to purchase a government approved plan or pay a $750 penalty, beginning in 2014. The tax penalty, indexed for inflation, would increase over time. The House bill requires individuals to pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of their income, depending on the size of their income, for not obtaining federally-approved health care coverage.

Weak or Strong Public Plan: The Senate bill establishes a new set of “multi-state” private health plans sponsored by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — the agency that administers the federal civil service — that would compete against private health plans in the state based exchanges that are mandated by the provision of the Senate bill. In contrast, the House bill includes an explicit public plan.

Medicaid Expansion: The left may complain that there is no government-run option in either bill, but both the House and Senate bill accomplish over half their additional health insurance coverage through Medicaid expansion. The Senate bill would require states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all Americans up to 133 percent Federal Poverty Level. The House bill would require states to expand their Medicaid programs to 150 percent FPL, the same level suggested in earlier versions of the Senate HELP Committee bill. Both Democrat and Republican Governors are against this state budget-busting welfare expansion.

Taxpayer Funded Abortion: The President promised that there would be no federal funding for abortion. In the House bill, by virtue of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, there is a genuine firewall between federal funding and abortion coverage. In the Senate bill, by virtue of the agreement between Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), there is no such firewall. For the “pro-life” forces on both sides of the aisle, the Nelson language appears to fall short of the House language.

These are all major policy differences that go to the core of the Obama health care plan. For each option, choosing one version over the other will have huge consequences for the American people. But since Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have threatened to veto the bill if any significant changes are made by the House in conference, it is most likely the Senate will prevail on every issue. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) might even just save herself and the leftist majority in the House the embarrassment and pass the Senate bill as is. After all, the Obama administration wants a bill, any bill, and doesn’t really care what is actually in it.

QUICK HITS

There’s no point in me talking about Ben Nelson’s sellout to Reid. I called it yesterday; it was a done deal before they ever sat down to talk about it, and you’ve already read about it all over the place anyway.

Really, there’s no need to talk about this healthcare bill at all anymore. It will pass no matter what – massive public outcry, dismal and dropping-like-a-stone approval numbers for both democrats and the bill notwithstanding.

The Democrats haven’t worked in the best interests of our country in years, but never have they been so blatantly dishonest and corrupt…hell, they barely attempt to conceal it anymore. Eric Holder’s blind eye to the Black Panther voter intimidation case, ACORN’s funding being restored by some leftist  judge who asserted that ACORN had a right – yes, a right – to public funding, the healthcare scam, the cap-and-trade scam, climategate and the dog-and-pony show that is Copenhagen,  the senate’s latest massive, massive attempted power grab that will take giant steps towards infringing private property rights, radicall leftists firmly and widely entrenched in the highest levels of government…..do I need to go on?

You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to put the pieces together on this one. The Democrat party, now fully controlled by the radical left, is well on its way to securing control over:

• Energy
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• The environment

With the 2010 census coming, ACORN back in the money, and an amnesty bill in the works, there’s a reason that the Democrats don’t seem concerned about the 2010 midterms. Why do you suppose that is?

Each and every single one of us who really understands the true danger of what Obama and his people are doing needs to ask some hard questions of themselves; primarily, ‘how hard am I willing to fight to defend my country?’

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-Cnation

We’re hearing some talk about a national strike on January 20, 2010 to coincide with King Zero’s state of the union speech.

While it remains to be seen if this idea goes anywhere, Conservative Nation supports this idea and encourages all our readers to participate and spread the word.

Stay tuned…

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-Cnation

…Proving once and for all that there’s no such thing as a principled Democrat. No word on what else he may have gotten besides an abortion compromise, but my bet is he walks away with something $$ignificant.

From FOX:

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has released a health overhaul compromise that has won the support of the lone Democratic holdout.

The compromise puts new limits on insurance company  profits and apparently resolve a standoff over limits on abortion coverage.

Reid, D-Nev., introduced the latest version early Saturday as the Senate pressed for a final vote by Christmas.

Democratic officials say Sen. Ben Nelson intends to support health care legislation backed by President Obama, giving the measure a 60th and decisive vote.

These officials say the conservative Nebraska Democrat will make an announcement later Saturday. Marathon negotiations with the White House and Senate Democratic leaders produced fresh concessions that will mean additional abortion restrictions in the legislation.

The measure would require insurers in the individual market to spend 80 percent of premiums on medical care. The requirement for group policies would be 85 percent.

That would limit overhead and profits. Children could not be denied coverage for health problems.

On abortion, the measure would let states disallow coverage in new insurance exchanges.

Emerging from marathon talks with Reid and White House officials late Friday night, Nelson said “real progress” had been made toward his call for greater restrictions on abortion within the legislation.

Reid “is confident” that his final package of changes in the long-debated legislation on Saturday “will prevail,” his spokesman, Jim Manley, said in a late-night statement.

Reid made no comment to reporters, but Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., another participant in the talks, sounded pleased. “I’ve been in Harry Reid’s office for 13 hours and I’m glad to get out of there,” he said. “But I’m particularly glad with what has happened in that office.”

With Nelson’s vote, Obama’s Senate allies would have the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster by Republicans.

That gave Nelson enormous leverage as he pressed for concessions that included stronger restrictions on abortions to be covered by insurance policies offered in a newly overhauled health care system. Officials said he was also seeking to ease the impact of a proposed insurance industry tax on nonprofit companies, as well as win more federal funds to cover Nebraska’s cost of treating patients in Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor. These officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the administration and Democratic leaders had offered concessions on those points.

The Nebraska Democrat has already rejected one proposed offer on abortions as insufficient, and the presence in the talks of Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., indicated additional changes were on the table.

Boxer has a strong record in favor of abortion rights. She told reporters as she left the Capitol at the end of the evening there had been progress made on the issue of separating personal funds, which may be used to pay for abortions, from federal funds, which may not.

The issue is contentious because the legislation provides federal subsidies to help lower and middle-income families afford insurance and the other federal health care programs ban the use of government money to pay for abortions.

The legislation would expand coverage to 30 million people now uninsured and try to curb rising health care costs. Insurance companies would be prohibited from denying coverage to people with health problems, or charging them more. All Americans would be required to have health insurance, or eventually face fines. The nearly $1 trillion, 10-year cost would be paid for mainly with Medicare cuts and new taxes on insurance companies and other parts of the health care industry.

The week saw an intraparty brawl among Democrats, with liberals seething over the compromises Reid has already made to keep the bill moving.

Gone is a government insurance plan modeled on Medicare. So is the fallback, the option of allowing aging baby boomers to buy into Medicare. The major benefits of the bill won’t start for three or four years, and then they’ll be delivered through private insurance companies.

So what happens now?

• Senate vote

• Conference committee:  where the House and Senate versions are negotiated and combined into one single final bill

• Final vote: Both chambers (house and senate) vote for the final time on the completed bill

• President signs into law

Assuming the Reid bill will now pass the Senate, opportunities to kill this piece of garbage are rapidly disappearing. The hope that it will be killed by the aforementioned mythical ‘principled’ Democrat is laughable, since as we’ve seen, there is no such thing; there are only those democrats who briefly hold out for the sake of theater, and to shake down Reid and Pelosi for whatever they can get for themselves and heir districts (see Landrieu’s $300 million vote payoff, aka the Louisiana Purchase).

The only chance there is at this point to kill this thing, in my opinion,  is for the leftists in the house to walk away from it due to the apparent lack of either an explicit public option or medicare expansion. However, I would also bet that one or the other will make a reappearance in conference.

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-Cnation

From National Review Online:

Will it be a blue, blue Christmas for the Democrat health-care reform bill?

A senior Democrat aide told Greg Sargent that the CBO is not likely to release a score of the Reid bill today, which puts additional pressure on Democrats to pass a bill before a self-imposed Christmas deadline. The leadership has to file for and secure cloture on a manager’s amendment, a substitute amendment, and the underlying bill en route to an up-or-down vote tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 1PM.

But Republicans could again use procedural tools to stretch proceedings, by demanding the thirty hours of debate between votes afforded by Senate rules. In response, Democrats are reportedly prepared to keep the Senate in session around the clock, which would push the final up-or-down vote to 7PM on Christmas Eve.

When asked this afternoon about his caucus’s debate strategy moving forward, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) told National Review Online that he wouldn’t comment specifically on “the procedural options available” to the Senate GOP, but that “the American people have been asking us to do everything we possibly can to stop this bill.”

When asked if he had any insight as to when the CBO score will come, McConnell said he did not.

“It’s always been just around the corner, for weeks now,” McConnell said. The Democrats, he said, “are in a state of confusion. I have 40 unified Republicans and they have a bunch of different Democrats with different points of view.”

Read the whole thing here

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-Cnation

Where’s the bill?

Does it exist?

Is it hidden in a hat?

Is it written on a cat?

Harry Reid’s bill, supposedly sent to the CBO for scoring several days ago, is still a mystery to pretty much everyone, including Nancy Pelosi, who hasn’t seen it yet, and Reid’s #2 man, Dick Durbin who also doesn’t know what’s in it.

In the mean time, Ben Nelson is a no, then a maybe, and now ‘not a yes’. The lefties, hands sore from banging their spoons on their high chairs over the apparent loss of a public option, are now in the process of making life a living hell for the senate democrats. Reportedly, in addition to Nelson, Senators Burris (D-IL), Sanders (I-VT), Feingold (D-WI)and Webb (D-VA), are now wavering. Then, of course, there’s the shitstorm that has surrounded Joe Lieberman since he held out until the public option and medicare expansion were dropped from the bill.

Still Harry Reid wants this thing done and voted on by Christmas, thoughtful deliberation, transparency, and public opinion be damned.

Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnel, speaking on the senate floor this morning, called the entire process “a charade” and “completely reckless, completely irresponsible”.

McConnell was being too kind. This aint about healthcare, folks,. This is, in my opinion, a highly unconstitutional and possibly even criminal attempt to expand government, expand the welfare class, and destroy both the free market and the middle class in one fell swoop through punitive redistributionism.

In our opinion. The gloves need to come off. With the left and the Democrats in the middle of their own little hissy slapfight (which, if it helps derail this monstrosity of a bill, then more power to ‘em), the Republicans need to go all out and stand right smack in the way of this bill at every opportunity from this point forward.

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-Cnation

Completely Reckless, Completely Irresponsible
from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell

Thursday, December 17, 2009

‘And here’s the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen. That’s right. The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor. It’s the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the importance of getting it right on health care reform:

“Senators on both sides acknowledge that the health care bill we’re considering is among the most significant pieces of legislation any of us will ever consider.

“So it stands to reason that we’d devote significant time and attention to it.

“Indeed, some would argue that we should spend more time and attention on this bill than most — if not every — previous bill we’ve considered.

“The Majority disagrees.

“Why? Because this bill has become a political nightmare for them.

“They know Americans overwhelmingly oppose it, so they want to get it over with.

“Americans are already outraged at the fact that Democrat leaders took their eyes off the ball. Rushing the process on a partisan line makes the situation even worse.

“Americans were told the purpose of reform was to reduce the cost of health care.

“Instead, Democrat leaders produced a $2.5 trillion, 2,074-page monstrosity that vastly expands government, raises taxes, raises premiums, and wrecks Medicare.

“And they want to rush this bill through by Christmas — one of the most significant, far-reaching pieces of legislation in U.S. history. They want to rush it.

“And here’s the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen.

“That’s right. The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor. It’s the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private.

“That’s what they intend to bring to the floor and force a vote on before Christmas.

“So this entire process is essentially a charade.

“But let’s just compare the process so far with previous legislation for some perspective. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve done and where we stand:

• The Majority Leader intends to bring this debate to a close as early as this weekend — four days from now, on this $2.5 trillion dollar mistake

• No American who hasn’t been invited into the Majority Leader’s conference room knows what will be in that bill

• This bill has been the pending business of the Senate since the last week of November — less than four weeks ago.

• We started the amendment process two weeks ago.

• We’ve had 21 amendments and motions — less than two a day.

“Now let’s look at how the Senate has dealt with previous legislation.

“No Child Left Behind (2001):

• 21 session days or 7 weeks.

• Roll Call votes: 44

• Number of Amendments offered: 157

“9/11 Commission/Homeland Security Act (2002):

• 19 session days over 7 weeks.

• Roll Call votes: 20

• Number of Amendments offered: 30

“Energy Bill (2002):

• 21 session days over 8 weeks

• Number of Roll Call votes: 36

• Number of Amendments offered: 158

“This isn’t an energy bill. This is an attempt by a majority to take over one sixth of the U.S. economy — to vastly expand the reach and the role of government into the health care decisions of every single American — and they want to be done after one substantive amendment. This is absolutely inexcusable.

“I think Senator Snowe put it best on Tuesday:

‘Given the enormity and complexity,’ she said, ‘I don’t see anything magical about the Christmas deadline if this bill is going to become law in 2014.’

“And I think Senator Snowe’s comments on a lack of bipartisanship at the outset of this debate are also right on point.

“Here’s what she said in late November:

‘I am truly disappointed we are commencing our historic debate on one of the most significant and pressing domestic issues of our time with a process that has forestalled our ability to arrive at broader agreement on some of the most crucial elements of health care reform. The bottom line is, the most consequential health care legislation in the history of our country and the reordering of $33 trillion in health care spending over the coming decade shouldn’t be determined by one vote-margin strategies – surely we can and must do better.’

“The only conceivable justification for rushing this bill is the overwhelming opposition of the American people. Democrats know that the longer Americans see this bill the less they like it. Here’s the latest from Pew. It came out just yesterday.

“A majority (58 percent) of those who have heard a lot about the bills oppose them while only 32 percent favor them.”

“There is no justification for this blind rush — except a political one, and that’s not good enough for the American people.

“And there’s no justification for forcing the Senate to vote on a bill none of us has seen.

“Americans already oppose this bill. The process is just as bad.

“It’s completely reckless, completely irresponsible.”

Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell for 12/17/09

Explaining why he would vote against the Senate version of Obamacare if he were a Senator, former-Democratic National Committee Charmian Howard Dean told MSNBC last night: “You’re going to be forced to buy health insurance from a company that is going to take on average of 27% of your money … and there is no choice about that. If you don’t buy that insurance you are going to get a fine.” For this heresy, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested Dean was irrational, and asked: “I would ask Dr. Dean, how better do you address those who don’t have insurance: passing a bill that will cover 30 million who don’t currently have it or killing the bill?”

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Later in the day, the successor organization to Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, Democracy for America, shot back at the White House, blasting out an e-mail that reads:

What they are actually talking about is something called the “individual mandate.” That’s a section of the law that requires every single American buy health insurance or break the law and face penalties and fines. So, the bill doesn’t actually “cover” 30 million more Americans – instead it makes them criminals if they don’t buy insurance from the same companies that got us into this mess.

And Dean’s DfA is not alone. Markos Moulitsas, the founder of one of the largest liberal blogs on the web, wrote Tuesday:

My take is that it’s unconscionable to force people to buy a product from a private insurer that enjoys sanctioned monopoly status. It’d be like forcing everyone to attend baseball games, but instead of watching the Yankees, they were forced to watch the Kansas City Royals. Or Washington Nationals. It would effectively be a tax — and a huge one — paid directly to a private industry. Without any mechanisms to control costs, this is yet another bailout for yet another reviled industry.

And firedoglake, the progressive blog that led the campaign to run Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) out of the Democratic Party, calls an individual mandate without a public option “Unacceptable For Moral, Political, And Policy Reasons” explaining:

The health insurance Americans are forced to purchase will not be affordable. Middle class families (making 300%-400% of FPL) will only get subsidies sufficient to make the premiums for the second cheapest insurance at the low quality silver level (70% actuarial) cost 10% of their income. … The individual mandate in this bill is nothing more than government-enforced private taxation on behalf of large, for-profit corporations. It would be just one more step toward corporate serfdom.

Conservatives have been making nearly identical critiques of the individual mandate since the beginning of the debate. Of course, we differ with the left on whether the public option would solve the above problems, but both progressives and conservatives are now in complete agreement that the current Senate bill would be a health care disaster for Americans. And the American people agree. In the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the American people oppose Obamacare 51% to 44%. But when asked about specific provisions of health care reform, guess which aspect is the least popular: the individual mandate. A full 57% Americans told NBC News they do not want Obamacare to create “a law that requires everyone to have health insurance coverage.” With only 38% of Americans supporting it, the individual mandate is the least popular portion of the bill.

Finally let’s not forgot that it wasn’t long ago that candidate-Barack Obama was also against the individual mandate. During his February 21, 2008 debate with then-Senator Clinton, Obama said: “Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they have concluded that that 20 percent can’t afford it. In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it, so now they’re worse off than they were. They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine.” According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Senate Obamacare bill would do the exact same thing, forcing 19 million Americans to pay $29 billion in taxes/fines and receive no health care in return. No wonder the left is yearning for candidate-Obama they had instead of the President Obama they have.

QUICK HITS

Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell for 12/16/2009

President Barack Obama yesterday hosted yet another health care pep rally to shore up liberal support for his health care bill. Obama’s “rally” followed Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest capitulation to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) health care demands, whereby Reid removed a Medicare expansion that Lieberman had initially supported. From the Roosevelt Room, Obama claimed Democrats were “on the precipice of an achievement that’s eluded congresses and presidents for generations.” But hours later, former Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told Vermont National Public Radio:

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This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. And, honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill and go back to the House … You have the vast majority of Americans want the choices, they want real choices. They don’t have them in this bill. This is not health care reform and it’s not close to health care reform.

Later on MSNBC’s Countdown, Dean further responded to President Obama’s claims that “You talk to every healthcare economist out there and they will tell you that whatever ideas are — whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses and government, those elements are in this bill.” Dean told guest host Lawrence O’Donnell: “There is no cost control of any substance. … You’re going to be forced to buy health insurance from a company that is going to take on average of 27% of your money … and there is no choice about that. If you don’t buy that insurance you are going to get a fine.”

The President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) agrees with Dean and contradicts Obama. CMMS found that the Senate bill, instead of bending the cost curve down, actually drives health care costs up, adding $234 billion to national health expenditures. But the President’s fantastic claims did not end there. Obama then asserted: “And in terms of deficits — because we keep on hearing these ads about how this is going to add to the deficit — the CBO has said that this is a deficit reduction, not a deficit increase. So all the scare tactics out there, all the ads that are out there are simply inaccurate.”

But the President leaves out this all important caveat in the CBO’s report: “In the subsequent decade, the collective effect of its provisions would probably be small reductions in federal budget deficits if all of the provisions continued to be fully implemented.” But nobody believes that all of the provisions in the bill will be fully implemented. For example, the Senate bill includes a 20% cut in the payments Medicare sets for doctors. Nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen. By changing just that provision, Obamacare ends up adding $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the second decade.

The American people already do not trust President Obama’s health care claims. Just today, the Washington Post released a poll finding that 51% of adults oppose Obamacare, with 40% in strong opposition. Meanwhile only 44% support the bill with only 25% feeling strongly about it. Digging deeper we find that 66% of Americans believe Obamacare will increase the federal budget deficit, 53% believe it will cause their own health care to cost more, 55% believe it will increase the country’s health care costs overall, and 50% believe it will not improve their quality of care. These findings echo an earlier CNN poll which found that 61% of Americans opposed Obamacare, with 79% believing it would add to the deficit and 85% believing it would raise their taxes.

It has become obvious to any American following the debate that President Obama has adopted a get-a-deal-at-any-cost mentality that puts a higher priority on the political victory of passing any bill over the policy substance of what is actually in the bill and how it would effect the American people. As Dean told O’Donnell last night: “You can’t vote for a bill like this in good conscience. … It costs too much money. It isn’t health care reform. It isn’t even insurance reform.”

QUICK HITS

Ace Frehley, the heart and soul of the original KISS, plays the national anthem live for the Kansas City Chiefs on October 4, 2009:

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-Cnation