Stop the Hysteria: The Vote on Health Care Bill Is Long From Being Over

November 21 2009 | jeveritas

[jveritas]

Today healthcare vote in the Senate was so badly represented by many on our side and of course by the media and was blown way out of proportion. In reality it is a meaningless vote. The vote today was only to start the debate and it is absolutely does not guarantee at all that the current bill in the Senate with it current version of public option aka socialized medicine is going to pass. In fact as it stands now this current bill is assured to be defeated because the socialists are not going to get 60 votes for cloture to end the debate and hence they cannot move the bill for a final vote. In other words the bill in its current form is dead.

Senator Lieberman has said so many times, very clearly, and very adamantly that he is going to filibuster an end for the debate as long as it has any form of public option and he also said many times that he was going to vote to allow the start of the debate as he did today. That is why Senator Lieberman has been for weeks the most hated person among the left wing lunatics. Many people misunderstood and misinterpreted what he has been saying and thought that Lieberman did not follow through on what he said he was going to do.

Senator Olympia Snowe has said that she is going to filibuster an end to the debate on this current healthcare bill if it contains the current form of public option. She wants a trigger public option which in practical political terms a meaningless thing that will never be triggered. In fact today she even voted against the start of the debate.

Now some will say that if the socialists do not get 60 votes to end the debate and move the bill for a final vote then they are going to use reconciliation or the so called “nuclear option”. This is very unlikely because for the use of reconciliation the bill has to go back to the budget committee or finance committee where it is going to be watered down significantly and just includes the insignificant trigger public option or a trigger co-op. Even very left wing Senators like Tom Harkin said that reconciliation will be a very bad thing to do.

What is the most likely scenario?

Most probably they are going to be able to pass a healthcare bill that contains a trigger public option or a trigger co-op which in all practical form is a meaningless gesture because it is not going to be triggered at all in the future. This is the bill that will go to Obama to sign it into law, the democrat politicians and their media will celebrate but their left wing lunatic base will go insane in a way that will shock many. The left wing lunatic base wants a strong public option (aka socialized medicine) as a minimum and is very much against a trigger public option or a trigger co-op because they know very well that the trigger means absolutely nothing and when this happens the left wing lunatic base is going to explode in total anger against the democrat party.

[Anti-Bubba182]

There would be a cloture vote to end debate for final vote, but those who say this first cloture vote is only a step to get debate on the bill to the Senate floor are cynically over looking that most bills that get far get passed. They all Know how it works.

Reid on Verge of Clearing Senate Health-Bill Hurdle

"...The Congressional Research Service released an analysis that found only one instance between 1999 and 2008 when Senate legislation failed after the chamber voted to end a so-called filibuster on a motion to debate a bill. That was a measure designed to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits that was rejected in 2004.

“When the Senate invoked cloture on a measure itself, it almost always proceeded to a final vote on the measure and passed it,” CRS analysts wrote to Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who requested the study....."

[Nateman]

Jan 19 is another chance to send the RATS a message.It's the special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Imagine if the voters are so mad the RATS lose the seat in MASSACHUSETTS? It would not only strip them of the critical 60th vote but truly terrorize the Rats and Rino's.

Of course a win would be absolutely unprecedented but then again with 17% real unemployment , the Country hugely in debt and a power hungry congress intent on ignoring the People I think we have a chance. The real problem is putting an end to "the fix". They WILL try and steal it.

If you live in Mass. volunteer to be an election judge and get to know election law. Work in a RAT district . They probably don't have many Republicans there. Learn how elections are stolen and what to look for. Pulling out a win in this hornets nest of commies would be just the thing to save America.

[Frantzie]

I thought Pataki might run too. I saw him on election night before I dumped Tv service. The savings is going towards 2010 donations. Pataki was pretty good on Fox.
He seems like a geniunely nice fellow.

I wonder if Bret Schundler could run in NJ. Good guy, conservative who has been treated badly by the RINO GOP. Maybe Christie’s campaign can work to get a good guy or gal in NJ.

[jveritas]

WOW, you have already surrendered. I have not and a tens of millions of other Patriotic Americans have not surrendered and we will never surrender. Your defeatism is totally un-American.

[what's up]

If it receives them, debate then ceases and they will then move for passage of the bill -- which would require only 51 votes.

True.

[jveritas]

If the Republican wins the Senate seat in the most liberal state in the Union, Massachusetts, then the absolute and massive fear among the democrats on the national level will be something that has not been seen ever before, the democrats in Congress would realize then that it is over for them in 2010 and Obama will become the earliest lamest duck President in history.

[mojo114]

Can you help out with this?

[Brandonmark]

The Democratic Party will NOT, I repeat will NOT allow their cherished health care plan to be derailed. Trust me, there will be a health care bill signed sealed and delivered before the midterm elections. Yeh, all kinds of things have to happen for it to become law, but it will happen. They CANNOT afford to lose the griphold they have on our country or risk their control to be loosened in any way. To the Democrats, POWER is their major motivation and if something happened to their bill it would be completely unacceptable to their major special interests (e.g. organized labor, feminists, blacks, environmentalists, and socialists). Not being pessimistic...just realistic!

[jveritas]

Pataki is good as well. I do not know who from our side will be running in New Jersey but if they elect someone who is at least fiscally conservative and strong on national security then we have a much better situation from we get from the current New Jersey Senators.

[JimWayne]

Agreed that there is one more 60-threshold vote, but this vote too should have been stalled. One has to use every tactic to prevent socialism. I am not as hopeful as you are for the final vote. I think Olympia Snowe will defect and use Lieberman’s defection in this round as an excuse. They won’t take responsibility for ushering in socialism and will point that they voted against the bill in one of the two cloture votes.

[D-fendr]

Can they change the bill while it’s under debate?

I don’t get what will be different between when they vote to open and vote to close debate. Can these two votes be on two different versions of the bill?

[Frantzie]

CT has Aetna in Hartford. They are big in health insurance. $31 billion in revenues and $1.4 billion in net income. Lierberman is not going to vote for a public option. If he is as close to these health insurance companies as I think he is.

A public option will kill their business. Maine used to have a big insurance company but I forget the name. Snowe and Collins I think are not going to back it.

Doctors are NOT gonna take this s**t either.

[jveritas]

Yes they can do it through amendments.

[DennisR]

Panic is in order. Congress is inept, irresponsible, insane, and derelict. If we do not panic now, it will be too late. Call, fax, email, write. Tell them you will campaign against them during their next election - then do it. And show up in D.C. on the day of the State of the Union Address in January for a massive protest.

http://pushbackuntil.com

[praepos]

You are right, this one vote is not the end of this thing. But you are wrong to focus only on the public option. That’s actually been a red herring all along. The real problem is with the comprehensive structure of the bill itself. It sets up over a hundred bureaucracies ready to put a stranglehold on the industry, including a health commission with the power to make health decisions belonging primarily to physicians and their patients. These bureaucrats would indeed begin rationing care. They will most certainly begin dictating parameters for insurance companies designed to raise costs and produce higher premiums while reducing the quality of health care generally. The bill will raise taxes and increase the deficit alarmingly. There will almost certainly be a pro-choice provision. Worst of all, it would forever reverse the role of citizens and public servants. It is a frontal attack on our most basic freedoms—and it destroys our privacy absolutely in matters of the gravest intimacy. It’s an abomination, with or without the public option. It must be defeated—and it will be. If not in Congress, then in the Courts. If not there, then by constitutional amendment. It will not stand.

[praepos]

Yes, there’s another vote for cloture—to close debate. That’ll need 60—and it won’t be easy.

[Will88]

Not under the current Democrat regime. If it makes it out of committee, it gets passed.

The amnesty of 2007 made it to this stage, then was defeated because the could not get the 60 votes. Reid even tried the "Clay Pigeon" tactic and it still failed.

[praepos]

Reid CAN’T do reconciliation. It would destroy the structure they want in place. It’s been a bluff all along. Besides, reconciliation would have to be renewed in five years or else the law would be nullified. You think the dems don’t worry about this? There won’t be any reconciliation.

[FreeReign]

Not sure why you think a trigger provision will not lead to the public option. The condition for not implementing the trigger is that health costs must come down. There's no reason to think that health costs will come down in the private sector without reform...which is why many think the trigger will be inevitable.

The devil would be in the trigger option details.

I'm not confident that Lieberman or Snowe won't fall for some inevitable trigger.

[jveritas]

I totally agree. Lieberman has in fact has been saying very forcefully that there is no way he is going to vote to end the debate on any bill that contains a public option.

Collins will filibuster any bill with a public option as well.

Snowe wants a trigger public option that starts in 5 to 6 years from now under the conditions that the insurance companies will meet certain requirements during this period but in reality a trigger never really gets triggered and that is why the left wing lunatics are so much against trigger public option.