by Sam Pierce
It would appear that Shrieker of the House Pelosi, or "She Who Must Not Blink", is confident she can twist enough arms to get enough votes for her monstrous health care bill this Saturday. Will "Big Brother" Barry send Rahm to the Capitol building deliver a few threats over the next two days? How a bout a dead fish wrapped in one of his tutus?
H.R. 3962 may pass the House after a Saturday evening vote, and one must wonder if the trial lawyers get their kiss (H/T Teri O'Brien) that same evening or do they wait until after Obama is re-elected (Heaven forbid) and has begun a second term? I suppose those of us who wanted the high costs due to medical malpractice lawsuits addressed (in other words, reasonable people) can view this as a means of addressing the issue. Of course this means of address provides states with an incentive to ensure that they do not cap attorney fees or awards.
The House vote is expected at 6 p.m. Saturday. The Rules Committee would have to meet 24 hours before the debate to prepare the bill for floor action, but Slaughter declined to say exactly when Rules would meet.
By allowing the Ellsworth language, House Democratic leaders hope to address the reluctance of anti-abortion Democrats to vote for the health bill.
Some of those lawmakers say they remain dissatisfied with the language, however.
Bart Stupak , D-Mich., may still oppose the Ellsworth language, potentially keeping the bill from passing. Stupak wants to bar any federally subsidized insurance plan from covering abortions, including any public plan set up to compete with private insurers.
Rep. Stupak might risk being screamed at as a "single-issue zealot" if he were an Illinois Republican whose stomach turned at the idea of a Senator Mark Kirk. Fortunately for him, he is not. Of course his respect for innocent life (unlike Mark Kirk) and insistence that money not be seized from the taxpayer to pay for the taking of an innocent child's life is inconvenient for the "ardent Catholic" Pelosi and irritating to the reprehensible abortion advocate Nancy Keenan. The Washington Obamost reports, "Some Democrats' concern over abortion may imperil health bill":
"I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation -- enough to derail the bill.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, cast Stupak as "attempting to ban abortion coverage in the private insurance market."
The abortion dispute centers both on federal subsidies that would be provided for people who cannot afford health-care coverage themselves and the much-debated government insurance alternative, which is included in the House version of the bill but is still being debated in the Senate. Under a 1976 law, federal funds are generally barred from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or to ensure the life of the mother.
NARAL Nancy is concerned taxpayers won't be killing babies so she needs to lobby for the sake of "women's health". Of course if she were actually concerned about "women's health", she would be lobbying against the government takeover of healthcare (or the polling approved "health insurance reform") in this nation of 300 million people! Instead she shows no mercy or remorse in her assault on innocent little boys and psst, Nancy, girls:
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed by 183 lawmakers who Stupak helped organize, a group of mainly Republicans wrote: "The U.S. government should not be in the business of promoting abortion as health care. Real health care is about saving and nurturing life, not about taking life."
Keenan said a provision such as Stupak's would cut abortion coverage from the health plans of women if their employers decided to enroll in the health-care exchange. But after spending many of the past several days on Capitol Hill working on the bill, she said she wasn't sure if there are enough House votes to pass it with the current abortion language in it.
It might be refreshing if the Statists would speak honestly regarding their motivation (some might actually be well intentioned in supporting this bill, but those are the fools) of power and control. Constitution be damned! This is the age of Obama, after all. Take the labor of the taxpayer and redistribute its fruit to the zero-liability voter (H/T Andrew Wilkow).
I do hope those who are able rise to the occasion and join the wonderful Congresswoman Michele Bachmann along with Mark Levin and others on the steps of the Capitol Thursday (11/5/09) at noon Eastern to show that we will not take this intrusion lightly. The mistakes of 2008 have already proven costly in both dollars and liberty! I only hope we can apply a tourniquet to the wound Barack Obama and his leftist majorities in Congress are deepening.
Cross-posted from "The Immoderate Blog"
Well said, Sam.
You've hit the key reasons why it should go down, though it's amazing which issues may have the most effect in the end...
A century ago (need I add, before the direct election of US senators?), this would have been knocked out on the simple grounds of being unconstitutional.
Today, we have to explain and convince that it will fail... that it costs too much... that it will make healthcare far worse, not better... that it will unavoidably use tax dollars for abortion... that it will cause lives in jeopardy, particularly the very old and very sick, to be cut short for budget reasons...
All true... but if Congressmen just obeyed their oaths of office, it would settle the issue without needing to contemplate a thousand other issues to chip away at its support, point by point.
We could save so much time and trouble if only the majority in Congress honorably respected the Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold.
JFD
Posted by: Johnny D. | Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 08:53 AM
JFD
Congresspeople for the most part have shifted from their responsibilities to the nation filtered through the expressed will of their constituency, to an attitude of directly serviving their District's political needs in order to continue being re-elected.
No more does a Congressperson rely on the principle of shared trust. No more, by the way, does the electorate expect him or her to put the nation first because that will benefit their lives as well.
The availability of the never ending bottomless public purse enables the Coingressperson to bill future generations for the benefit of his captive voters.
Districts have been gerrymandered so that the number of safe seats have increased to astronomical proportions. At the same time, voter percentage has fallen off at the local, State and Federal level.
I would suggest that pensions for elected officials be abolished and term limits be embraced. That would shorten the overlong stays of the many who must presently finance overly expensive campaigns and featherbed for their future.
The military used to have a rule (at least until 1973 when I completed by service) that for ten years after retirement a serving officer could not act as a lobbyist. A good ruke, I believe. It should be extended to term limited pensionless politicians.
I would suggest as well a jobs hold open rule similar to that for our reserves who are called to active duty. It would apply to our electees as well.
But that would leave the mandarin class in place -- thode career unelecteds who slither from Congresspeople personal staffs to committee staffs, to positions in the Executive departments, to lobbying firms and back again in a continuing roundelay. They are the people who write the bills on behalf of the Congresspersons, who inform their fellows in parallel positions. They are the oil which grease the legislation. They are the true rulers, these mandarins.
Posted by: PeteSpeer | Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 11:50 AM
So right, Pete... especially regarding the mandarin class. As long as government has power, they will put it to use... usually unconstitutionally.
JFD
Posted by: Johnny D. | Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 12:35 PM