Obamacare Without a Vote

As I have addressed in several posts below, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Congress appear intent on approving the massive Obamacare entitlement program without even having the House of Representatives vote on the bill.  In an article today in The Washington Post, the Speaker is quoted as follows:

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill" [emphasis added].

She likes it because the House does not have to vote?  Truly, this whole process makes my stomach churn.  The Congress of the United States, under the control of the Democratic Party, plans to take over seventeen percent of our national economy without even subjecting the matter to a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.  Are the supporters of Obamacare so wedded to the idea of the federal nanny state that they are willing to flout the Constitution of the United States in order to put their social policies into effect?

Senator Byrd and the Use of "Reconcilliation"

The video above has come to light featuring our very own Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) addressing the use of the "reconcilliation" process to force controversial legislation through Congress.  In the speech, made on the floor of the Senate in 2001, Senator Byrd explains how he opposed President Clinton's plan to use reconcilliation to pass Hilarycare.  I have not been able to determine the context of the speech, which was made when George W. Bush was President, but I would assume that he was using his opposition to President Clinton's plan to illustrate why he was opposing some Republican plan to use reconcilliation in 2001.  I seldom agree with Sen. Byrd, but I certainly do agree with him that reconcilliation should never be used to force passage of a controversial bill that does not have the support in Congress to pass by the normal set of parliamentary rules.  I checked Sen. Byrd's website and found nothing regarding Speaker Pelosi's current parliamentary manuevers.  I wonder if he will make the same floor speech this time around.

Notes from Here and There

Watching Sausage Being Made.  Want to understand the parliamentary mechanics required for Speaker Pelosi to get the Senate's Obamacare bill passed in the House of Representatives?  An explanation of the ugly process may be found here and here (if you have the stomach for it).

Debunking More Obamacare Myths.    How often have you heard that the uninsured drive up the cost of health care by using hospital emergency rooms as their source of primary care?  How about the one where the overall health of the nation's populace will improve if we just implement universal care?  Robert J. Samuelson, economist and columnist for The Washington Post, provides proof to the contrary.

Obama the Messianic President?  In case you have ever had any doubts about how The New York Times views President Obama, check out this photo illustration of the President with halo and cross.  I have no words for this one.

Mapping America's Future

Do you want to see a rational alternative to the nanny-state liberalism of the Obama Administration?  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who stood up to President Obama at the so-called "Health Care Summit" discussed in the IVM post below, has presented a plan to put America on the road to a secure financial future while still addressing the important issues of health care availability and runaway entitlement spending.  Unlike Obamacare, which will increase the cost of health care for every single American while driving the nation into financial ruin, the health care proposals within Rep. Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future would:

• Provide a refundable tax credit to every single American to be used to pay the cost of health insurance coverage.  (Hmmm, where have I heard this before?  Oh yeah, I said it.)
• Break the current connection between employment and health insurance, thus creating a system of true insurance portability.
• Provide individuals with choices in health insurance by leaving the decision-making about what is the best fit to the individual rather than to employers.
• Get rid of the current health insurance tax subsidy that benefits large companies at the expense of small employers and self-employed individuals.
• Make health insurance universally available to every single American regardless of age or medical history.
• Encourage competition within the marketplace of health services, thus driving down costs.

So, are you ready to sign on now?  I certainly am.  Too bad that Congress seems intent on driving all of us off the cliff behind the wheel of Obamacare.

The Roadmap addresses other important issues too:  fixing the unfair and incomprehensible tax code; reforming the Federal budget system; and dealing with the looming disaster of entitlement debt to programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  And the next time you hear that the Republicans do not have a plan to address the issues important to average Americans--or worse yet, that Republicans are heartless beasts that don't care about the plight of average Americans--file it away as just the dying gasps of the beast that is the liberal nanny-state.

Debunking the Administration's Claims About the Cost of Obamacare

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District served as the lead-off batter for the GOP at President Obama's Healthcare Summit last week, and he hit it out of the park.  While the President continues to lie about the true cost of his healthcare plan, Rep. Ryan did an outstanding job explaining how the President's numbers simply do not add up:

"The bill has ten years of tax increases and ten years of Medicare cuts to pay for six years of spending. The true ten year cost when subsidies kick-in? $2.3 trillion. . . Does this legislative effort bend the health care cost curve?  It does – but in the wrong direction. It bends the cost curve up, not down.  Essentially, this bill chases ever higher spending with ever higher taxes. The taxes never catch up, resulting in ever higher deficits."

Despite the President's relentless focus on his health care plan, the American people are not buying it.  The lastest polling from Rasmussen shows that 52% of American's oppose the President's plan, while only 44% favor it.  Of the 52% who are oppposed, 43% say that they strongly oppose the plan, while only 22% of those in favor of the President's healthcare agenda say that they strongly support it. 

The American people are much smarter than the President appears to believe.  They understand that you cannot create a vast new government entitlement program without spending a vast amount of money--money that we simply do not have.  The President seems to be telling us to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" while the great and powerful Oz uses smoke and mirrors to disguise the insanely high cost of his healthcare agenda.
 
Take the time to listen to Rep. Ryan's complete opening remarks, and pay attention as the camera occasionally flashes to the President's face.  Notice that pained, pinched expression?  It is the expression of a man confronted by the truth, and the truth hurts.
 

How much is $100 Million?

First of all, I know that this is an old video, and some of you may have seen it already, but it provides a good visual reference point when trying to wrap your head around really big numbers.  The video refers to the $100 Million in budget cuts that President Obama promised last year when he was pushing Congress to pass his so-called "stimulus package."  I like not only the way this guy explains the numbers, but also the general piled-up nature of his apartment.  A man who thinks about the budget obviously has to give up time that would otherwise be devoted to housework.