Posted on 12/17/2009 9:32:44 PM PST by bdeaner
A year in the making, sweeping health-care legislation backed by President Barack Obama hung in the balance yesterday as conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson withheld his vote in pursuit of stricter abortion limits.
“Without modifications, the language concerning abortion is not sufficient,” Nelson declared in a statement that summarized the results of days of negotiations.
With the support of the second-term Nebraskan, the White House and Senate Democrats would command 60 votes for the health care measure, enough to overcome a GOP filibuster and pass the bill within a matter of days. Without it, the prospects are far more uncertain.
As drafted, the measure bans the use of federal funds to finance abortions under insurance to be sold in a newly created exchange, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. The plans could provide abortion coverage, however, that consumers would purchase with their own money held apart from any federal subsidies they receive.
Meanwhile, powerbrokers on the left were growing restive.
Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, and Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, yesterday voiced their disappointment that the legislation has been stripped of any form of government-run insurance option.
The union leaders stopped short of urging the plan’s defeat. Not so former national party chairman Howard Dean, who said he would oppose it.
Nebraska’s governor urged Ben Nelson to vote against this plan regardless of the abortion language.
I say Ben commits political suicide if he votes for this measure in any form. The abortion clause was inserted to make it look like he’s taking some kind of a stand for something. Democrats saw this from a mile away and inserted it there just for that reason. It’s nothing more than a Red Herring and I believe Conservative Nebraskans are savvy enough to see it. Nelson is on the chopping block if he votes for this montrosity, regardless.
With pro-life amendment's defeat, US bishops urgently call for changes in Senate health bill
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Bishops urged to be tough on pols who would pay for abortion
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Bishops Call for Massive Catholic Opposition to Abortion in Current Health Care Reform
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The Bishop's Ax Falls on Obama. And on the Vatican Curia (bombshell article)
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Catholic Bishops Declare They Will ‘Vigorously’ Oppose Health Care Bill as It Now Stands
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List: *41* Bishops against Obamacare (and counting!)
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Health Care Principles [Bishop Samuel Aquila, Fargo, ND]
Florida Bishop [Thomas Wenski] Weighs in on Health Care Reform
ObamaCare and Catholic social teaching [Bishop Neckless]
Some Catholic bishops question gov't health care
Boston’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Says He Confronted Obama about Abortion in Health Care Plan....
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in a message issued by the Diocese of Sioux City (The Church on Universal Healthcare)
Nazi Health Care A Catholic Bishop Speaks Out Against "End of Life Care" (Germany, 1941)
Bishop Nickless: "No Health Care Reform is Better than the Wrong Health Care Reform"
Cardinal Rigali, Abp. Chaput Intensify Warnings Against Obamacare's Abortion Expansion
The huge increase in the powers of the Secretary of HHS is proof of that. What the legislation does not say can be added by executive order and subsequent regulations, and of course threw judicial interpretation. All of these will expand rather than restrict the scope of law.
“Nebraska’s governor urged Ben Nelson to vote against this plan regardless of the abortion language.”
He will likely flop over on his back just like Mary Landrieu
did - and probably for less money.
The American Communist Party used to run Presidential candidates, but in recent years, supports the Dem Party, which has become the Fascist Socialists Party.
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