Curmudgeon's Corner

Nearing The House Health Care Vote...

Posted by Al Campbell on Nov. 6, 2009

Economy, Healthcare, Political, Quality of Life, Taxes, U.S.

Her Highness, Nancy Pelosi, feels that she has sufficient votes to get the House wrangled together on Saturday for the final vote on her health bill.  This vote is scheduled for Saturday for several reasons.  Among those is the lesser scrutiny that she expects from the press, the fact that the members would've otherwise been home and are anxious to leave town, and the fact that she buys a bit more time, can make a few more promises and hoodwink/threaten the last one or two into a yes vote.

The new "usual suspects" have emerged. 

The American Medical Association (AMA) has sold its soul in the hopes that Pelosi will give them $210 Billion by not automatically cutting Medicare reimbursements to their doctor members.  They have declared their support for the House bill while asking, in return, that Pelosi deliver a victory to them on reimbursements that will cost at least $210 Billion more over the next ten years.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has sold out the seniors it supposedly represents by declaring its support of the House bill, as well.  The seniors will face a $500 Million reduction in Medicare funding and that will directly eliminate, or virtually eliminate, the program called Medicare Advantage in which about 25% of seniors now participate.  The Democrats in Congress simply cannot tolerate the private sector doing something better than the public sector can do, and that means that they must kill the Medicare Advantage program.  And AARP is a tool of the Democrats!  Period!

So it has come down to this:

Pelosi lies about what the bill does and/or will do; she hoodwinks enough of the public and bludgeons her members, and smiles that wide-eyed smile while proclaiming that she and her Democrat majority have saved the country.

And President Obama stands anxiously in the wings waiting for the opportunity to push similar buttons in the Senate so he can sign this "historic" legislation.

If it passes and if he signs it, it will be "historic", but not in the good sense.

Then he can focus on the grand, and equally bogus, "cap and tax" bill.  That plus health care reform should just about do it for the United States.  We'll become the equivalent of Canada and the bulk of Europe in no time.  And then every election can focus on curing the health care problems we've wrought.