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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...

Senate Republicans blasted the chamber's new healthcare bill in no uncertain terms on Saturday. "Make no mistake, this bill will reshape our nation and our lives," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. "This bill is a legislative trainwreck of historic proportions." McConnell's Democratic counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), unveiled the final language for his party's healthcare bill while simultaneously sewing up the 60th vote for the bill in Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). "The history that's being made here is the ignoring of the will of the American people," McConnell said. Other Republican lawmakers dumped on...

National Organization for Women opposes Senate health bill By Michael O'Brien - 12/19/09 01:55 PM ET A leading women's group called on senators on Saturday to defeat its healthcare reform bill. The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). "The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a...

Democrats felt the heat Saturday -- from some liberal groups on one side and Republican lawmakers on the other -- over a deal struck in the Senate to secure enough votes to pass a health care overhaul pushed by President Obama. The Senate's Republican leader called the bill a "train wreck of historic proportions," while liberal groups stepped up their complaints that Democrats gave up to much ground to court the last remaining party holdout. Obama, however, praised the compromise, saying it put the United States "on the cusp" of reforming the health care system, a goal that has eluded...

Surprise.... Surprise... a new low? I think so.

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate’s bill’s abortion position unacceptable – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Supposedly he’s in Connecticut for the Jewish sabbath, but come on. We all know he’s in Barbados. Laughing his ass off. Already, they’ve wheeled in the cots for members and staff who choose to slumber party the night away in the Capitol, or Senate offices. But tomorrow, bright and early, all of them could need to be on hand for procedural reasons. For instance, Democrats expect to have to waive a budget point of order they expect Republicans to raise against the defense appropriations bill. That requires 60 votes… “After being assured by Democratic and Republican leaders that his vote...

We must keep fighting this. Keep calling, emailing, faxing your senator, the vote is scheduled for Monday at 1am

18 states allow for recall votes on US Senators. The 18 states allowing for recall are as follows: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. The Senate oath of office is: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well...

Patriots, "Telephone Tea Party #2" starts NOW!!! Storm congress by phone by calling your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and telling them to "Kill the Pelosi/Reid/Obamacare Bill." Let's bury congress with calls and protest the bill. CALL NOW, CALL EARLY, CALL OFTEN. LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD. Rise up, call NOW!

Holy craptards. McConnell is having Reid's amendment read out loud. Does this mean that Colburn and DeMint will get the whole bill read out loud? If the R's do this, I'll be impressed. I never thought they had the balls.

UPDATE: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just filed for cloture on the motion to proceed to debate on his health care bill. That pretty much seals it. Unless conservative Democrats take a very public stand by voting "no," the bill unveiled yesterday will be the bill the Senate hashes out on the floor.

WASHINGTON -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, strongly opposes the abortion language contained in the "manager's amendment" filed today by U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nv.). Reid intends to press for Senate approval of the language during the days immediately ahead, without allowing an opportunity for any revisions to be considered. The following statement may be attributed to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson: "The manager’s amendment is light years removed from the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that was approved by the House of Representatives on November 8 by a bipartisan...

  An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) coordinated opposition to the Senate health bill’s abortion compromise this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate bill’s abortion position "unacceptable" – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “I never talked to McConnell about the health care bill,” said Stupak, adding that “I did not authorize the email [which] “was sent without my knowledge.”  Stupak said that he has discussed the Senate’s abortion position with Democratic senators Ben...

In Congress’s upper chamber, a Virginia fox may be the one to deliver the knock-out uppercut to Obamacare. Quiet, cunning, and independent, Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.) has been on the sidelines for much of the Senate’s health-care debate. Instead of ranting, like Bernie Sanders, Webb has been mulling legislative language in his office for weeks. Neighboring Senate staffers whisper that Team Webb is having a real tough time shuffling the senator out of the office to make appearances on the glad-handing circuit. It seems the man just wants to sit, study, read, and think — strange priorities in the...

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...

But this wouldn’t be Congress’s first historic mistake. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 to “buy American” sounded like a good way to protect jobs by keeping out cheaper foreign products. Historians agree it was a mistake, setting off waves of retaliatory tariffs and making the Great Depression worse.

A leading women's group called on senators on Saturday to defeat its healthcare reform bill. The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). "The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us," NOW President Terry O'Neill said in a statement.

Proposed changes to the U.S. Senate's pending healthcare reform bill include measures targeting industry profits and taxes, and a move to ensure health insurers spend a certain amount on medical care, according to a document released on Saturday. The changes, proposed as a group of amendments, must be approved by the Senate before they can be added to the massive legislation that lawmakers are struggling to finish before Christmas despite delaying tactics by Republicans and a severe snowstorm in the nation's capital. Democrats appear to have pulled together the 60 votes needed to pass a final bill. The taxes are...

Only a day after Senate Democrats voted to move into a historic debate on overhauling the nation's healthcare system, key centrists made it clearthat the party is still a long way from delivering on its promise to provide near-universal insurance coverage and contain medical costs. Faced with the prospect of Republican filibusters, Democratic leaders must deliver the same kind of total unity they managed to achieve in Saturday's vote to begin debate: Every Democratic senator, plus two independents who caucus with them, supported the key procedural motion. But several of those senators spoke out today to say that they will...