Free Republic

Democrats wrongly believe Americans voted their party out in droves in 1994 due to their party's inability to deliver universal health care legislation back then. It appeared to be a politically convenient way for Democrats to explain away their losses that year and think up new ways to tee up another universal health care bill in the future. Unfortunately for Democrats, what was once political spin to save face after losing the House and Senate to Republicans, became accepted as correct political analysis among party leaders and will likely cost Democrats even more seats come this November. In 1994 the...

An Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today flatly calls President Obama's plan to jam ObamaCare through the U.S. Senate using the 'Nuclear Option' "Reconciliation Process" an "Abuse of Power." The article lays out very clearly how this will be the first time the process created in 1974 has ever been used to pass sweeping legislation like Obama's Health Care Plan. Though the White House is trying to make people think it is no big deal - that it has been used before like this - the Democrats' own Sen. Robert Byrd has said it would be wrong to...

Routine self-monitoring of blood glucose levels by people with type 2 diabetes who are not taking insulin is an ineffective use of health resources as the modest benefits are outweighed by the significant cost of test strips, suggest 2 studies http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj091017.pdf and http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj090765.pdf in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) www.cmaj.ca . In Ontario, blood glucose test strips are the third largest cost for the Ontario Public Drug Programs in 2007/08, accounting for $100 million or 3.3% of drug expenditures. Usage of test strips increased by almost 250% from 76,320 people in 1997 to 263,513 people in 2008. Almost 53% of...

I got a call from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry the other day. From the sound of things, the Senate clearly intends to take its holiday break Wednesday, no matter what. If so, President Obama is going have a tough time making his Christmas deadline for a health care reform bill to win Senate approval. At this point, it looks like the biggest winners when a bill finally does pass are going to be the insurance companies. They'll be getting millions of new customers - at government expense.

Washington—As debate rages on in both the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate as to who the biggest whore in Congress is, Senator John McCain, R-AZ, went on Fox News Sunday to argue his case that Ben Nelson was by far the biggest whore. McCain went on to say that anyone who let himself be used by Senator Reid so easily was hands down the biggest slut he’d ever seen. “What this man did,” claimed McCain on Fox News Sunday, “was to demonstrate how big a harlot he was on a public stage. At least Senator Landrieu went out behind...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is headed to Nebraska. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, will headline an Omaha rally Sunday afternoon to try to persuade U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson to change his mind on health care reform. The rally will be at 3 p.m. at the Civic Auditorium Music Hall, 17th Street and Capitol Avenue. Doors will open at 2 p.m. The rally was put together quickly Saturday after Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said he would support a health-care reform bill in the Senate. Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Terry of Omaha is expected to attend, as well as state...

Let's face it FRiends, if the unconstitutional healthcare bill passes, the socialist coup d'etat will have advanced well beyond the point of no return! There is nothing in the constitution that authorizes this illegal federal power-grab and plenty that forbids it. If the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Marxist attempted coup pulls this off without the people resisting to the hilt, then they'll have no restrictions whatsoever on implementing the rest of their Liberty killing Marxist agenda. America will be no more. The whole idea of our constitution is to severely restrict the federal government to only its dozen and a half expressly listed...

SOLD: Sen. Nelson’s Bribeby Publius We’ll be blunt. The ‘health care reform’ legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the live’s of every American.Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will...

CBO: Senate health bill costs $871 billion By Michael O'Brien - 12/19/09 12:00 PM ET The Senate's healthcare bill would cost $871 billion and cover 31 million more Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the bill. The CBO said that the final legislation, unveiled Saturday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, would cost $871 billion over the next 10 years and reduce the deficit by $132 billion over the same period. That's more than the first Senate bill had cost. Roughly 31 million Americans would receive new coverage under the legislation. The final Senate bill will cost...

The Twelve Days of Health Care On the first day of Health Care Obama gave to us: A Fine for no Health Coverage On the second day of Health Care Obama gave to us: Two Backroom Deals and a Fine for no Health Coverage On the third day of Health Care Obama gave to us: All illegals covered Two Backroom Deals and a Fine for no Health Coverage On the fourth day of Health Care Obama gave to us: Big Pharma payoffs All illegals covered Two Backroom Deals and a Fine for no Health Coverage On the fifth day of...

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson says he won’t vote for the “health care” bill if it has any support for killing womb babies. Will he cave? If he’s an opportunistic politician, of which they are legion, then we do not know if we can trust him. If he’s a totally committed biblical believer, no matter what the politics, his allegiance to God’s Word will not waver. Time will tell.

Nebraska Democratic holdout Sen. Ben Nelson has declared "not sufficient" the compromise abortion language offered to him, and is digging in by raising numerous other objections to the Senate health bill. His fellow home-state Senator, Republican Mike Johanns, joined a GOP press conference today railing against the legislation, reading aloud condemnations from Nebraska's governor, also a Republican, to intensify the pressure on Nelson. He appears not to need it. Former President Bill Clinton, who a few weeks ago wowed Democrats in their Senate luncheon chamber, clearly agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's argument, and disagrees with Howard Dean's. He called...

Maybe Leavenworth has a TV studio he could use . . . Keith Olbermann has vowed to break the law and go to jail if ObamaCare requires him to buy health care insurance. Keith made his macho boast in the course of his melodramatic Special Comment this evening. View video here.

WASHINGTON -The liberals' longtime dream of a government-run health care system for all died Wednesday in the Senate, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies "are no longer needed." Sanders, an independent and socialist, said his approach is the only one "which eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy and profiteering that is engendered by the private insurance companies." His remarks drew handshakes and even a hug or two from Democrats who had filed into the Senate to hear him. Sanders acknowledged the proposal...

Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., and 19 other GOP senators today called for a hearing into reports that the Obama administration used the future of Offutt Air Force Base as bargaining chip in the health care debate, according to a press release by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has flatly denied that Offutt came up in connection with the health care bill or any other piece of legislation. The White House also has described those reports as "absurd." The group of Republican senators called for a hearing in a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin,...

Sen. Tom Coburn has just demanded that the Senate clerk read the single-payer amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders -- and it's 767 pages. Typically, Senators offering amendments will ask for unanimous consent to avoid reading the entire meausure, but all it takes is one Senator to object to demand its reading, and Coburn objected to Sanders attempt to dispense with the reading of the amendment. To give you a sense of how this could delay things, it took the Senate clerk 18 minutes to get through the first 6 pages of the amendment, which were the table of contents....