Sunday, November 8, 2009

ObamaCare passes the House

On a 220-215 roll-call vote, at 11:15 p.m. on a football Saturday, after a debate watched by an audience tiny even by C-SPAN standards. Ed Driscoll gets in a Billy Idol reference: In the midnight hour, Pelosi cried, "More, more, more."

Michelle Malkin notes that "bipartisanship" included exactly one Republican vote for this monstrosity. The Weekly Standard's John McCormack names the 39 Democrats who voted against it.

What are the chances the Senate will pass it? Dunno. But at least now they will be debating actual legislation, rather than a hypothetical. The House bill is chock full of specifics that can be highlighted as arguments against passage, and any senator looking for an excuse to vote "no" can point to those 39 Democrats who voted against it in the House.

The factor that proponents of "reform" have always on their side -- until last night -- was the advantage of advocating a nebulous good. "Reform" is one of those glittering generalities (like "democracy" and "rights") that politicians are afraid to be against. Being "anti-reform" is sort of like being anti-Girl Scouts.

With passage of the House bill, proponents of this measure have forfeited the glittering-generality advantage. The specifics of this massive legislation will likely prove its undoing.

5 comments:

  1. I disagree that now the Senate will be debating specific princples.

    The objective of Harry Reid is to pass ANYTHING. That means to pass whatever he's able to bribe the Senate with to be minimally acceptable.

    The real bill.. the one that no one has seen, is sitting in Pelosi's office, waiting for the Conference Committee.

    This entire process from start to end has been a sham.

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  2. Social conservatives were united in striking abortion funding from the bill. That made it possible for Democrat social conservatives to vote for the bill.

    Ha. Hah. Hah. Hah.

    Social Conservatives are just too funny.

    Well at least it won't fund abortion until the reconciliation process is complete.

    There was a deal killer in the bill and Republican and Democrat social conservatives joined forces to take out the deal killer.

    I just love my social conservative friends. And I agree that government should not be funding abortion. But the result of being rabidly anti-abortion at any cost has given us a monster.

    Way to go guys.

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  3. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that doctrine makes people doctrinaire i.e. stupid.

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  4. We still don't have a bill. The Senate will vote on something which has "health care" in the title but may have little in common with the House bill.

    Then the two will go into "reconciliation" and THEN there will be a "bill" for us to read.

    Unless there isn't.

    Outlook fuzzy...

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  5. Mike Thompson (D-CA) - North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson doesn't think the House of Representatives health care bill is perfect, but he thinks it's a historic step forward.

    ”I don't think it's close to perfect,” Thompson said Saturday afternoon, hours before he intended to vote for the bill. “This is like any other major piece of legislation -- we're going to be working on this forever. As long as there are people and there's a need for health care, we're going to be refining this legislation. It's the nature of the beast. But, this bill brings us one step closer to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.”


    Mike Thompson is a worthless cull, once a man who won votes from both sides of the aisle, now and in recent years he has shown himself to be a partisan tool. He was going to vote for this bill in the very beginning, before the Recess when they were trying to ram it through. Before anyone, including himself, had read it, before anyone knew what was in it. Before the Tea Parties, before the "nasty" Town Hall meetings, before the people started asking questions and before the people told him what they thought.

    He would have voted for it no matter what was in it - and he has now done just that.

    There is no reason for us to pay for Congressmen and Senators like him to fly to Washington and maintain an office there. We know how he will vote. He does not need to be present or to attend any meetings or read any legislation. It is all dictated for him. We can fill in the blank for his vote while he sits on a street corner begging for change.

    Gone are the days when Congressmen were Statesmen.

    There is an election coming. Register to vote if you haven't. VOTE even if you have been slacking. Make this one count.

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